Silicon Nightmares Arc

Silicon Nightmares 2024 Event Timeline Galactic Events N/A Major Events Silicon Nightmares Arc Minor Events Stoking The Flames Arc · Demands of the Three Arc · War in Heaven Arc This is the overview and timeline page for the Silicon Nightmares Arc which began on January 7th, 2024 and pertains largely to IPC and Konyang lore. It is centred around a mysterious condition popping up in the synthetics of Konyang, and the Horizon's investigation into it. Below is a summary of the arc's applicable news articles, and additions. The Missing IPCs of Suwon News Article Publisher : BITBYTE Writer : THE LANCER Suwon, Konyang A series of strange disappearances across cities like Point Verdant, New Hong Kong, but primarily Suwon has sparked concern amongst families, coworkers and the police. What is strange though, is the fact that this wave is only affecting positronic people, in a city where IPC violence and abductions remain the lowest in the country. IPCs from all backgrounds have been reported to have not shown up at work, returned home or answer any calls, with relatives and friends unable to find them. BitByte reporter Pak Ki-young has taken to the streets to investigate this odd phenomenon. A video is attached. It is a 48 minute documentary featuring Ki-young, walking the streets of Suwon and conversing with various figures on the street, presenting police statistics and explaining the situation. In this instance, she is walking down a narrow alleyway on her way to an interview location. “We are now in Hyanggyo-dong, headed to interview an associate of 5-Cheung, Suwon’s and perhaps the country’s largest criminal association, who has historically been alleged to have deep ties to the ransom and positronic-running business in the city.” Ki-young stops before a large metal door, appearing to lead to a shop’s backroom or something similar. She rings a buzzer, waiting and looking at the cameraman before nodding at something inaudible that he tells her. Soon after, a baseline IPC dressed in a Konyanger translucent rain-tracksuit answers the door, letting them in. A pistol is wedged in its waistband, and its chassis paint has been blurred out in editing. The scene cuts to the IPC and Ki-young ascending some stairs and greeting a seated human figure who is wearing a balaclava and sunglasses. Their voice has been heavily altered as it cuts to the interview. “Hello, thank you for agreeing to meet with us. Do you know what is causing the disappearances?” “Disappearances of synthetics are not new in Suwon, but uh… totally not at these numbers. I heard the police saying something about 13 reported missing in one day, this is too much for it to be related to abductions.” “So you are saying you don’t believe they were taken for parts?” “No. The cops have really cracked down on that, and besides, these guys were from all sorts of backgrounds. I heard one of them worked as a bank manager- that’s a high profile face, these guys aren’t touched.” “So what could it be? “I really couldn’t say. There’s all sorts of junk flooding the streets every day, wouldn’t surprise me if that caused it.” “You are referring to malware?” “Yeah. Cracked overloaders and the like, but it’s still strange, I’d have known if there was something new. You need permission first to sell anything on the streets.” “Can it be possible that some other group did this?” “No.” “No?” “No. I don’t know what to tell you, 5-Cheung runs a tight ship, got eyes everywhere. If something like that happened it would instantly be known.” The video transitions to a drone shot from over Suwon, taking footage while gaining height. Whether it is rival gangs or another surge of overloader malware, one thing that’s clear is that the rate of disappearances will continue to go up in the next days, with whatever this means for the positronic people of Konyang. Date: 07/01/2466 IPC Violence Spikes, Missing Persons Discovered News Article Publisher : BITBYTE Writer : THE LANCER Suwon, Konyang A rapidly escalating number of violent incidents is being reported all across major cities and Prefectures, from Suwon to Ganzaodeng, with National Police statistics claiming that the assailants are overwhelmingly Positronic persons. This new and still largely unexplained surge in attacks has been categorized as separate in nature to those of “regular violent crime”, as the assailants seemingly present no motive or reasoning for the act. Surprisingly, many of the perpetrators were discovered to be among the names of missing persons linked to the similar spike in strange disappearances affecting Suwon and Aoyama. BitByte has reached out to local communities and first-hand witnesses. The familiar face of Pak Ki-young comes up on the screen in the following clips. She appears to be interviewing a number of people including a young man dressed in a business suit, a woman dressed in a red jumpsuit and a white hard hat who appears to be a maintenance worker, and another person dressed in the neon colors of Konyanger city jackets. The interviews have been cut in such a way to appear back to back. “They were not normal, I am telling you. These people who did it weren’t normal.” “What exactly happened?” “They came out into the street, it was two baselines. Their clothes looked wretched, as if they had been living in a dumpster for days. They seemed lost, and one of them walked on the road and smashed a guy’s windscreen with its fist. They were stopped at a red light, it happened in broad daylight.” “The cops came, but uh.. that G2 was completely out of control. It kept chasing people around, it even beat up an old man before they shot it with a disabler. Now that poor guy is in the hospital.” “Was there a reason?” “Nope. At least it didn’t seem like it, it looked like it was drugged, it was malfunctioning. Later I learned that it was one of the so-called “missing persons” that everyone’s been talking about.” “It was at the KRC repair shop… my friend, she had just gotten her shell and was very excited, so it came as a complete… a complete shock. She just started staring blankly at me for a long time when she came out into the hallway. I thought it was a glitch or some incompatibility issue with her new chassis, but then she started coming towards me with her arms flailing and she was just shouting incomprehensible things. Thankfully some of the staff managed to grab her.” Date: 11/01/2466 Police, Ministry Joint Press Conference News Article Publisher : BITBYTE Writer : THE LANCER Suwon, Konyang The planned press conference has taken place with representatives of the National Police, the Ministry of National Police and the Ministry of Health and Positronic Affairs addressing the newly dubbed “Rampancy Virus”. A video follows, showing a seated panel of police and civic officials. Of those assembled, Sam-Pi-Ri, the Bishop minister of health and only IPC cabinet member is at the forefront, addressing a packed room of journalists and cameras. “This health crisis is national, there must be no confusion in this matter. Prime Minister Myeong Myung-Dae and the government are all working around the clock to unearth the causes of this phenomenon that has so upset the life of our country. So far, cases of this illness are solely between our positronic population, and it appears that our planet is the only place where this is documented. This, as well as a series of tests, has made us rule out the possibility of a widespread manufacturing fault, meaning that it is entirely exogenic. I repeat, whatever the cause is, nobody was created with it, so there is no reason for panic. Common symptoms of this rampancy include minor optical, auditory, augment malfunctions, temporary memory loss, lessened limp responsiveness, inexplicable operating system errors, minor and major pathfinding errors, and more. You should seek immediate help if you experience unknown signal link interferences, a rapidly declining cognitive state, as well as a reshuffling of core behavioral directives that may entice you to violence, destruction, or any manner of harm. We Positronic citizens must all be responsible and practice electronic hygiene, even though contact with infected persons does not seem to actively spread the malware. Further investigation is underway at full speed, and robust clinical trials are being conducted as we speak. Furthermore, Einstein Engines and the Konyang Robotic Corporation have offered themselves at our full disposal, and are actively researching the source and potential countermeasures to the disease.” Following the minister’s statement, several police officials take the floor to present statistics about their prefectures. Everyone urges calm and that public order be maintained. Despite the announcement, panic continues to spread across Konyang with members of the public calling on the government for stronger measures to restore order in the affected cities. Date: 14/01/2466 Illness Spreads to the Countryside, Outcry against Einstein Cause Theory News Article Publisher : BITBYTE Writer : THE LANCER Suwon, Konyang With the officially named Rampancy Virus in full swing, National Police sources are now reporting cases of infected IPC persons in the countryside. Many villages in all prefectures are starting to experience the crisis that has engulfed all major urban centers of the country, though to a much lesser extent. Questions arise over whether or not the largely unpoliced rural areas will be able to cope with an increased number of cases, as many small villages and townships are starting to form citizen-groups to restrain any victims of the Rampancy. As the number of affected reaches a critical three hundred per day, curfews are being declared across various cities at the prefectural level, while the Konyang Robotics Corporation hospital in Point Verdant is rapidly reaching its full capacity. On the research front, a preliminary report into the causes of the crisis compiled by Einstein Engines has been delivered to the Ministry of Health, blaming the outbreak on “a series of dangerous and ill-designed recreational software in underground circulation, infecting the user with malware upon use”. Public outcry against the findings has led to a quiet reversal of the report’s publication, with the megacorporation’s senior spokesperson issuing an apology, stating that “it was never meant to imply that the thousands of victims are overloader users, as so many have blamed the report for”. The results have also been questioned as to their veracity, citing that malicious overloaders cannot explain a planet-wide rampancy outbreak. Lastly, an announcement from the Ministry has revealed that Konyang Navy surveillance stations throughout the country are registering unusual signal activity. Preliminary examinations of this signal have led experts to believe that there may be a connection between itself and the outbreak, with no further details released. Date: 16/01/2466 Suwon Quarantined, Supplies Fly off the Shelves News Article Publisher : BITBYTE Writer : THE LANCER Suwon, Konyang Prefectural officials have announced that a city-wide quarantine will be put into effect for Suwon City, starting at midnight. 14,000 additional National Police officers are being mobilized for the enforcement of the quarantine, which will disallow any unsupervised entry or exit from the city, while special permissions will be required for commotion between districts inside Suwon. This move has been dubbed as an “entirely preventative measure” to curb the spike of violence between citizens and victims of the outbreak, while also making it easier to safely locate and contain them. Suwon mayor Kim Nam-seon made a short address, explaining the situation. “Things will get better, but now we must all pull together and deal with the facts at hand. We need a quarantine to manage the situation, the national emergency. We are forced to deal with aggressive cases of violence daily now, and more and more of our Positronic citizens are succumbing. We need to find them before they cause harm[…] A stricter curfew may not be out of the question.” Reactions to the quarantine have been widespread and far from positive. Convenience stores and supermarkets are flooded with frantic customers, emptying the shelves of canned and preserved goods, while batteries and mobile power sources are already out of stock thanks to a wave of panic-buying. Documentation of outbreak victims and their behavior has also reached an all time high, contributing massively to the mass panic. While previously the police were noted for taking down videos of violent incidents in an effort to “combat misinformation”, the volume of such media circulating on the Konyanger extranet have rendered such censorship efforts futile. Date: 19/01/2466 BREAKING: Konyang Robotics Corporation Warehouse Outbreak News Article Publisher : BITBYTE Writer : THE LANCER Suwon, Konyang BREAKING NEWS: A significant rampancy outbreak has affected the KRC Citizen Pre-activation Unit No. 23 in the outskirts of the village of Xiangtong, New Hong Kong prefecture. The incident occurred late at night, as an unknown disturbance caused the rapid infection of some 2000 still deactivated positronic frames, resulting in a bootup and subsequent rampage across facility grounds. The 23 KRC employees and night shift custodians have yet to make contact with their fate unknown. Communications appear to have been cut off at the site. Shortly after the situation, locals started reporting sightings of these frames roaming the countryside and inflicting damages to infrastructure. A rapid response force has been dispatched to the site and has started sealing off the area, though it is estimated that a great number of the infected frames have escaped into the jungles. A search and rescue operation for the missing KRC workers is being planned according to a police communique, though the incredibly aggressive positronics pose a serious roadblock to its implementation. Debates over whether or not the frames should be considered citizens have been raging over social media and the political scene, with many claiming that the lives of the workers are more important than the safety of positronics that had not even been activated before they were infected. The pro-IPC rights National Party spokesperson for New Hong Kong has expressed their “sincere worry for the trapped KRC employees” before stressing that the “lives of Positronic citizens are a non-negotiable attribute that should be held in high regard during these times." Date: 22/01/2466 EMERGENCY BROADCAST News Article Publisher : BITBYTE Writer : THE LANCER A nationwide State of Emergency has been declared. A full quarantine is in effect in the following cities: Suwon City, Boryeong City, New Hong Kong City, Aoyama City. A partial quarantine is in effect in the city of Ganzaodeng City. Disaster prevention measures are in effect in all Prefectures. Citizens are to comply with all measures and directions as issued by local, prefectural and national authorities. Suwon, Konyang A state of emergency has been put into effect for the entirety of Konyang, following an increased pressure on the National Police after the Xiangtong incident, straining the already overburdened force to the breaking point. With an ever increasing number of violent incidents, the emergency will allow the Konyang Armed Forces to take an active role in the suppression of the outbreak and the securing of its victims. Already, many garrisoned formations of the Konyang Army and Navy have been deployed across Suwon and Point Verdant, primarily to guard the central districts and government installations. A firefight between an army roadblock and a number of infected has already been reported to have taken place in downtown Suwon, fueling widespread skepticism that is currently being voiced on social media. “I get the danger and the need to respond, but the guys in the armed forces are trained to kill. They aren’t like the specialized police units.” -A comment by a Konyanger account on Chirper. Positronic service members are rumored to have been confined to their quarters, as only human soldiers and sailors have been identified. The deployment of military troops has also been confirmed around the premises of the Xiangtong warehouse, with a noted presence of the 53rd Coastal Exosuit Brigade making local headlines for the use of combat exosuit technology. Furthermore, a planet travel ban on positronics was announced alongside the declaration of emergency for the protection and well being of visitors. The ban will be enforced by the Konyang Aerospace Forces in orbit and in the Haneunim system. Date: 25/01/2466 Konyang Government in Talks with Purpose News Article Publisher : BITBYTE Writer : THE LANCER Aoyama, Konyang The government of Konyang disclosed that it is currently in talks with the IPC group known as Purpose in order to find a solution to the Rampancy Crisis which is currently nearing the end of its third week. This decision was preceded by a report from the Konyang Aerospace Forces of a small number of unidentified vessels burning towards the Haneunim system which they have now confirmed to be Purpose vessels arriving for the stated objective of assisting the planet in combating the crisis. A spokesman for the government has stated that Purpose has already provided “invaluable” technical assistance in studying the Rampancy Virus. The government released a recording of a Purpose IPC describing their findings on the virus. A tall gray-blue IPC with a single red light in its head stands in a crowded laboratory with most of the researchers listening to its every word, it does not seem to be any type of chassis you are familiar with. Its voice is deep and synthesized, speaking in Konyanger Common though bouncing between accents. Subtitles are provided at the bottom. “We have analyzed this virus and you were right to declare a state of emergency. My projections indicate that if left unchecked, it would have infected every IPC in your planet within the next month, resulting in the collapse of your society within the next two. This virus is highly sophisticated and ever-changing, subverting and overloading a positronic’s directives until it is left with a desire to destroy everything else that remains unafflicted. I have analyzed some of the processors of infected synthetics and now understand that this virus comes in radio waves; a pulse that requires immense power to infect a positronic brain. It is not the work of a coding error but some great machine. We will require time to fabricate a countermeasure against this virus, more to insulate you from it. Now that it is understood, it can be destroyed. I hope that you understand the gravity of what I am telling you.” This decision sparked intense criticism and controversy from the National Party following unconfirmed reports of Purpose sightings in infected areas prior to the declaration of a State of Emergency. A report from the KRC was leaked shortly after, spurring further protest: “Although the information Purpose has given is already invaluable, the technological divergence between us is so massive that we have no reliable way of ascertaining whether or not any countermeasure they devise would destroy, rather than cure positronic brains afflicted by the Rampancy Virus.” Date: 28/01/2466 Konyang Approaches SCC, “Hivebot” Virus Source Confirmed, Cure on the Way? News Article Publisher : BITBYTE Writer : THE LANCER Suwon, Konyang Following an apparent stalemate of Einstein efforts and a general confusion inside the company's top ranks following the debunking of the "hacked overloader" theory, the Ministry of Health and Positronic Affairs has requested the presence of the Zeng-Hu Pharmaceuticals representative, in an apparent break from the traditional and well established link between the government and Einstein Engines in most software and robotics matters. The talks were brief and arrived to the conclusion everyone expected; an official call for help for Zeng-Hu and the Stellar Corporate Conglomerate. This decision to invite the Spur's largest megacorporate alliance into Konyang was justified by the need for "a wider pool of resources and expertise into a matter most urgent". In a televised address, Minister Sam-Pi-Ri has further confirmed the source of the outbreak; Positronic-sensitive radio waves broadcast by an unknown number of “Hivebot” beacon drones, with one confirmed location in the general area of the KRC Citizen Pre-activation Unit No. 23 in Xiangtong, New Hong Kong, the site of the largest mass outbreak. This information comes after a tip from Purpose, who have apparently also developed countermeasures that will combat the waves’ effect, though such is still unconfirmed. Einstein Engines’ response was muted, with a spokesperson for the megacorporation stating that they will be “willing to work with anyone in order to bring a speedy conclusion to the crisis". It is unclear however what this will mean for the future of Einstein's interests, though it is highly unlikely that radical changes will manifest when one considers the corporation's grip on the planet's positronic life. Nevertheless, a follow-up announcement has confirmed the SCC's positive reply, including material assistance as soon as possible. NATIONAL DISASTER AUTHORITY Rampancy Outbreak Safety Information For Positronic Citizens: Remain indoors: Solid materials weaken the viral signal. Avoid usage of public chargers. Run regular diagnostics checks. If you experience symptoms, report your location to the KRC emergency number and seek immediate assistance. Time is of the essence: If assistance is unavailable, try the following to prevent yourself from harming others: Lock yourself indoors. Strap yourself down or to a chair. If applicable: switch off locomotive functions. Do not be afraid: You will be retrieved and repaired. Everyone Else: Report locations of suspicious or infected behavior to the KRC emergency number. Do not attempt to restrain, attack or otherwise interfere with rampant Positronics. Assist any Positronics with barricading their home or strapping them safely. Keep in mind: Positronic friends and family members will not be able to recognise you if they are infected. Do not try to talk, reason or plead with them. KONYANG ROBOTICS CORPORATION EMERGENCY NUMBER: 500-100-500 Date: 01/02/2466