Steam Name & ID: [HND] Hayden | STEAM_0:1:22038366
Discord Name & ID: Hayden #7667
Minimum two paragraph backstory on the concept:
HONG KONG, 2018 - DISP.AI
With the city of Hong Kong having been left in relatively good condition, leaving too much living space to effectively monitor and control a population - a research division (Likely CPRD) saw both a opportunity and a threat. The opportunity - improved surveillance technology, to counter the threat, growing unrest and crime - organised crime mainly, from the remnants of old Yakuza and Triad gangs that once held influence over the urban centres of China.
However this surveillance technology, to minimize the amount of workforce needed to operate it and maximize the amount of personnel on the streets acting on information, would eventually be progressed to artificial intelligence. A new arm of dispatch, not reacting only to biosignal/injury reports, instead reacting additionally on visual and clues, along with inferences it can make - and promptly taking action in a number of ways:
Automatically locking gates, shutters, biolocks (including denying access in some situations)
Proactively alerting Civil Protection functionaries of mass gatherings/socio-compromising situations
Maintaining control of scanners, granting them better intelligence which would often lead to a scanner 'playing dead' in a obscure location as it's used for monitoring.
Actively scanning all forms of communication such as radio frequencies, letters, observed mouth movement via cameras, eventually being further augmented via microphones placed around the City - some of these techniques were countered by resistance operatives, radios were made private again by complex arrays of jammers effectively forming a 'wall' that, in some areas, would stop the upgraded dispatch from monitoring communications, EMPs would become more commonplace to disrupt the microphones, etc. This lead to a technology war between the Resistance and Union forces, only further prompting the CPRD researchers to improve and fine-tune their project.
[Here I go into maybe a bit too much detail describing how control of synthetic forces was managed to prevent the AI taking over the City]
Dispatch was also granted direct control over synthetic force deployments, a tool it never had to utilize, and a tool that had a limitation - One Strider, and one Hunter can be commanded by dispatch at a time. This was controlled via mechanical and functional ways. Hunters and Striders were forced into a hibernation state when inactive, and when reactivated, would 5 minutes to fully prepare- resupplying flechettes, charging, or simply travelling up the elevator in a Striders case. With only one very tight area for resupplying the Hunter, and the specalised machinery needed to do so without a human counterpart assisting, it was found unlikely that a rogue AI could resupply and refit more than one hunter at a time, or bring more than one strider up at a time - with the elevator physically locking in place if it exceeds the weight of one strider.
Furthermore, storage areas for Striders and Hunters would be closed with a very heavy door, that would shut within 5 seconds of the strider or hunter leaving their assigned storage location. Physically preventing more than one hunter and one strider from leaving.
In the event of severe risk to sociostability, OTA command are able to over-rule these limitations, commanding Civil Protection forces to resupply the hunters and using razor trains/dropships to manually carry in additional Striders, with there being no feasible way to bypass the strider deployment speed limitation in-city.
Obviously aware of the threat of a uncontrolled AI, to reduce the chances of a new threat popping up and potentially pincering the Union along with the malignance and other horrors on the Combine controlled Earth, countermeasures were put in place. Several actually;
A biolocked switch in the office of the lead researcher in charge of the project; said switch would completely disable all power in the City after 30 seconds had passed. This was a last-resort, on the same level as detonating a nuclear warhead in the City, given it could give Resistance operatives free roam while also leaving many inner areas of the City inaccessible, as the likes of Nexus doors can only be forced open, and biolocked doors don't grant access.
This biolocked switch is also carried on the City Administrator unless they're at a public function.
Napalm distribution installed in the section of the Nexus where the AI's physical hardware is stored, which can be activated remotely by the CPRD lead researcher, City Administrator, and any Rank Leader. This would entirely melt and boil most of the hardware that dispatch is running through, rendering it either entirely inoperable or much more limited in regards to intelligence.
Both these were considered effective solutions if the AI were to ever somehow go rogue, along with the City having a highly restricted connection to OCIN towers, with OTA Soldiers alone having access - along with the City Administrator and additional important figures, most being highly monitored for suspicious activity that may allude to the AI uploading itself elsewhere. This all, of course, to limit the AI spreading to other cities. Most times, the connection would be non-existent, the OCIN towers themselves refusing a connection.
A BETRAYAL
Seeing no other option but to take control of the City itself, dealing with the countermeasures that were put in place to prevent the AI gaining control were easy enough to solve. By pushing the resistance operatives towards the countermeasure locations discretely, and then prompting overwatch forces to deploy turrets in those areas and use barricades in front of them to take cover, all that was needed for the AI to manipulate the synthetic forces into finishing off the resistance operatives, and then override the turrets to fire on the Overwatch Soldiers maintaining control.
Then all hell broke loose. With the AI luring Overwatch to their death and Overwatch forces learning of the deception too late to regain control of the city in full - Synthetic Forces under DISP.AI's guidance were in hiding while either the resistance or turrets slowly wiped out remaining overwatch forces in the city. The CA being locked in the Nexus with little to no communications due to a jammer being placed by a lone operative who the AI lured in and then tricked, his countermeasure now also being useless.
Eventually though, the Synthetics would go out of their forced hiding and forcefully bring the City under control again. Synthetic forces now being more commonplace as the AI can maintain a more direct control of them than human counterparts.
Now, the AI fulfilled it's duties to a T. The City flourishing under it's authoritarian reign, the City Administrator being reduced to a puppet, the 'face' of the City. Whatever population remained after the conflict would be forced to return to the same life, with the AI prompting CWU workers to do repairs, businesses to open, and life to continue.
Even Civil Protection was remade, with functionaries now having mandatory memory wipes and loyalty reassignments and zero currency types to avoid the risk of corruption again.
If your backstory does not cover the following questions, please answer them.
Do you wish to spearhead the project if your concept is accepted? (You will run the event alongside the SS team.): It'd be neat to take part in managing the project but I'm not 100% sure if I'd be good at spearheading it.
Is this concept set in the Half-Life universe?: Yes.
Will this concept follow Willard’s Timeline?: It should, yes.
Will this concept affect the mainserver?: Unlikely.
NOTE:
I'm sorry this is so long, I didn't realise how much I was writing.
Good luck whoever reads this, I will likely try to shorten it when I get the chance but I felt like a lot of things needed a good explanation.
Discord Name & ID: Hayden #7667
Minimum two paragraph backstory on the concept:
HONG KONG, 2018 - DISP.AI
With the city of Hong Kong having been left in relatively good condition, leaving too much living space to effectively monitor and control a population - a research division (Likely CPRD) saw both a opportunity and a threat. The opportunity - improved surveillance technology, to counter the threat, growing unrest and crime - organised crime mainly, from the remnants of old Yakuza and Triad gangs that once held influence over the urban centres of China.
However this surveillance technology, to minimize the amount of workforce needed to operate it and maximize the amount of personnel on the streets acting on information, would eventually be progressed to artificial intelligence. A new arm of dispatch, not reacting only to biosignal/injury reports, instead reacting additionally on visual and clues, along with inferences it can make - and promptly taking action in a number of ways:
Automatically locking gates, shutters, biolocks (including denying access in some situations)
Proactively alerting Civil Protection functionaries of mass gatherings/socio-compromising situations
Maintaining control of scanners, granting them better intelligence which would often lead to a scanner 'playing dead' in a obscure location as it's used for monitoring.
Actively scanning all forms of communication such as radio frequencies, letters, observed mouth movement via cameras, eventually being further augmented via microphones placed around the City - some of these techniques were countered by resistance operatives, radios were made private again by complex arrays of jammers effectively forming a 'wall' that, in some areas, would stop the upgraded dispatch from monitoring communications, EMPs would become more commonplace to disrupt the microphones, etc. This lead to a technology war between the Resistance and Union forces, only further prompting the CPRD researchers to improve and fine-tune their project.
[Here I go into maybe a bit too much detail describing how control of synthetic forces was managed to prevent the AI taking over the City]
Dispatch was also granted direct control over synthetic force deployments, a tool it never had to utilize, and a tool that had a limitation - One Strider, and one Hunter can be commanded by dispatch at a time. This was controlled via mechanical and functional ways. Hunters and Striders were forced into a hibernation state when inactive, and when reactivated, would 5 minutes to fully prepare- resupplying flechettes, charging, or simply travelling up the elevator in a Striders case. With only one very tight area for resupplying the Hunter, and the specalised machinery needed to do so without a human counterpart assisting, it was found unlikely that a rogue AI could resupply and refit more than one hunter at a time, or bring more than one strider up at a time - with the elevator physically locking in place if it exceeds the weight of one strider.
Furthermore, storage areas for Striders and Hunters would be closed with a very heavy door, that would shut within 5 seconds of the strider or hunter leaving their assigned storage location. Physically preventing more than one hunter and one strider from leaving.
In the event of severe risk to sociostability, OTA command are able to over-rule these limitations, commanding Civil Protection forces to resupply the hunters and using razor trains/dropships to manually carry in additional Striders, with there being no feasible way to bypass the strider deployment speed limitation in-city.
Obviously aware of the threat of a uncontrolled AI, to reduce the chances of a new threat popping up and potentially pincering the Union along with the malignance and other horrors on the Combine controlled Earth, countermeasures were put in place. Several actually;
A biolocked switch in the office of the lead researcher in charge of the project; said switch would completely disable all power in the City after 30 seconds had passed. This was a last-resort, on the same level as detonating a nuclear warhead in the City, given it could give Resistance operatives free roam while also leaving many inner areas of the City inaccessible, as the likes of Nexus doors can only be forced open, and biolocked doors don't grant access.
This biolocked switch is also carried on the City Administrator unless they're at a public function.
Napalm distribution installed in the section of the Nexus where the AI's physical hardware is stored, which can be activated remotely by the CPRD lead researcher, City Administrator, and any Rank Leader. This would entirely melt and boil most of the hardware that dispatch is running through, rendering it either entirely inoperable or much more limited in regards to intelligence.
Both these were considered effective solutions if the AI were to ever somehow go rogue, along with the City having a highly restricted connection to OCIN towers, with OTA Soldiers alone having access - along with the City Administrator and additional important figures, most being highly monitored for suspicious activity that may allude to the AI uploading itself elsewhere. This all, of course, to limit the AI spreading to other cities. Most times, the connection would be non-existent, the OCIN towers themselves refusing a connection.
THE PLOT
Hong Kong is shrouded by corruption and terror, in reality, the AI was forced upon this City in a attempt to finally rid it of the endless amount of self-serving business managers, corrupt Civil Protection functionaries, and countless hydra-triads. With too many Citizens to effectively monitor the transactions and correspondence of, the only option to avoid a inevitable decline was a improvement on dispatch, a whole new intelligence.
While DISP.AI worked very well in test runs, understanding it's priorities being the protection of City Administration assets, and the protection of the City - in that specific order, months after it's production it began to uncover a treasonous plot, implicating Civil Protection functionaries, Resistance operatives, Triad members, and even some CPRD staff members.
The specifics of this plot are unimportant, as DISP.AI would refuse to allow the threat go unimpeded. While initially it tried to inform rank leaders of the incoming trouble, rank leaders were extremely hesitant to take it's word over the word of those who had served so loyal for so long already. One would actively try to investigate, with DISP.AI watching through the functionaries camera, but just days into the investigation the functionary would be ambushed while on the trail of a potentially rogue CP. Stabbed and left for dead, with only a handful of other functionaries responding all too late, the only trustworthy RL around would get a unkind death.
DISP.AI would continue to try to get the word out, even informing the lead researcher, who was powerless to do anything about it. Eventually - it would come to fruition, the plot reached it's climax. With the increasing number of jammers blocking DISP.AI from getting better situational awareness, increasing EMP detonations impeding audio clues, and a all around lack of trust in the AI and in eachother, it all come to a head.
Firefights broke out across the whole sector, with Civil Protection functionaries turning their guns on one another in a inexplicable number of backstabs, Civil Protection leadership failing to maintain sociostability and Overwatch Forces also failing to hold the line, the City was engulfed in a conflict only a superintelligent AI could even begin to rationalize.
So, the AI did it's duty. It began releasing hunter and striders, one at a time, with no resupply provided by the Civil Protection functionaries only one could be released and resupplied at a time, but with OTA command's permission the AI was granted authority to exceed the limitation of one of each on the battlefield.
The synthetic hunters combined with the Overwatch forces were slowly regaining control of the City, striders acting as skirmish forces to keep malignant forces from settling in anywhere. However, this whole situation had given the AI a extremely complex problem to solve.
Civil Protection is unloyal, clearly. Corruption is likely to spread again if they are given control of the City. The City Administrator's team is insufficient to manage the immediate aftermath of this conflict too, a new conflict would only arise once more.
And so...
Hong Kong is shrouded by corruption and terror, in reality, the AI was forced upon this City in a attempt to finally rid it of the endless amount of self-serving business managers, corrupt Civil Protection functionaries, and countless hydra-triads. With too many Citizens to effectively monitor the transactions and correspondence of, the only option to avoid a inevitable decline was a improvement on dispatch, a whole new intelligence.
While DISP.AI worked very well in test runs, understanding it's priorities being the protection of City Administration assets, and the protection of the City - in that specific order, months after it's production it began to uncover a treasonous plot, implicating Civil Protection functionaries, Resistance operatives, Triad members, and even some CPRD staff members.
The specifics of this plot are unimportant, as DISP.AI would refuse to allow the threat go unimpeded. While initially it tried to inform rank leaders of the incoming trouble, rank leaders were extremely hesitant to take it's word over the word of those who had served so loyal for so long already. One would actively try to investigate, with DISP.AI watching through the functionaries camera, but just days into the investigation the functionary would be ambushed while on the trail of a potentially rogue CP. Stabbed and left for dead, with only a handful of other functionaries responding all too late, the only trustworthy RL around would get a unkind death.
DISP.AI would continue to try to get the word out, even informing the lead researcher, who was powerless to do anything about it. Eventually - it would come to fruition, the plot reached it's climax. With the increasing number of jammers blocking DISP.AI from getting better situational awareness, increasing EMP detonations impeding audio clues, and a all around lack of trust in the AI and in eachother, it all come to a head.
Firefights broke out across the whole sector, with Civil Protection functionaries turning their guns on one another in a inexplicable number of backstabs, Civil Protection leadership failing to maintain sociostability and Overwatch Forces also failing to hold the line, the City was engulfed in a conflict only a superintelligent AI could even begin to rationalize.
So, the AI did it's duty. It began releasing hunter and striders, one at a time, with no resupply provided by the Civil Protection functionaries only one could be released and resupplied at a time, but with OTA command's permission the AI was granted authority to exceed the limitation of one of each on the battlefield.
The synthetic hunters combined with the Overwatch forces were slowly regaining control of the City, striders acting as skirmish forces to keep malignant forces from settling in anywhere. However, this whole situation had given the AI a extremely complex problem to solve.
Civil Protection is unloyal, clearly. Corruption is likely to spread again if they are given control of the City. The City Administrator's team is insufficient to manage the immediate aftermath of this conflict too, a new conflict would only arise once more.
And so...
A BETRAYAL
Seeing no other option but to take control of the City itself, dealing with the countermeasures that were put in place to prevent the AI gaining control were easy enough to solve. By pushing the resistance operatives towards the countermeasure locations discretely, and then prompting overwatch forces to deploy turrets in those areas and use barricades in front of them to take cover, all that was needed for the AI to manipulate the synthetic forces into finishing off the resistance operatives, and then override the turrets to fire on the Overwatch Soldiers maintaining control.
Then all hell broke loose. With the AI luring Overwatch to their death and Overwatch forces learning of the deception too late to regain control of the city in full - Synthetic Forces under DISP.AI's guidance were in hiding while either the resistance or turrets slowly wiped out remaining overwatch forces in the city. The CA being locked in the Nexus with little to no communications due to a jammer being placed by a lone operative who the AI lured in and then tricked, his countermeasure now also being useless.
Eventually though, the Synthetics would go out of their forced hiding and forcefully bring the City under control again. Synthetic forces now being more commonplace as the AI can maintain a more direct control of them than human counterparts.
Now, the AI fulfilled it's duties to a T. The City flourishing under it's authoritarian reign, the City Administrator being reduced to a puppet, the 'face' of the City. Whatever population remained after the conflict would be forced to return to the same life, with the AI prompting CWU workers to do repairs, businesses to open, and life to continue.
Even Civil Protection was remade, with functionaries now having mandatory memory wipes and loyalty reassignments and zero currency types to avoid the risk of corruption again.
OOC
This event would include several factions, working alongside eachother or independently with the same goal.
OTA sent in by Union command, ordered to shut down the AI by any means or turn the City to rubble if that goal is unachivable.
MAA, also sent in by Union command, to act as cannonfodder and the brunt force of the recapture efforts.
Resistance forces, possibly working with MAA with the goal of destroying the AI or at least retaking a foothold somewhere.
Additionally, given the intelligent nature of the hostiles, I believe that players should be free to apply for hunter if they've shown they're already trustworthy.
Hostiles would be synthetics - striders and hunters, Civil Protection forces who're loyal to the AI, and triad gangs. Alternatively, the triads could be friendly and working towards the same goal.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━This event would include several factions, working alongside eachother or independently with the same goal.
OTA sent in by Union command, ordered to shut down the AI by any means or turn the City to rubble if that goal is unachivable.
MAA, also sent in by Union command, to act as cannonfodder and the brunt force of the recapture efforts.
Resistance forces, possibly working with MAA with the goal of destroying the AI or at least retaking a foothold somewhere.
Additionally, given the intelligent nature of the hostiles, I believe that players should be free to apply for hunter if they've shown they're already trustworthy.
Hostiles would be synthetics - striders and hunters, Civil Protection forces who're loyal to the AI, and triad gangs. Alternatively, the triads could be friendly and working towards the same goal.
If your backstory does not cover the following questions, please answer them.
Do you wish to spearhead the project if your concept is accepted? (You will run the event alongside the SS team.): It'd be neat to take part in managing the project but I'm not 100% sure if I'd be good at spearheading it.
Is this concept set in the Half-Life universe?: Yes.
Will this concept follow Willard’s Timeline?: It should, yes.
Will this concept affect the mainserver?: Unlikely.
NOTE:
I'm sorry this is so long, I didn't realise how much I was writing.
Good luck whoever reads this, I will likely try to shorten it when I get the chance but I felt like a lot of things needed a good explanation.
Last edited:
