GAIA

The Faro Plague

In the mid 21st century, robotic automation became the lynchpin of society. This included military operations. Spearheaded by its chairman and CEO Theodor 'Ted' Faro, a robotics and technology corporation called Faro Automated Solutions developed a combat platform called Chariot. It was the most advanced combat platform ever developed; a Chariot unit was unstoppable to all except its masters. The robots of a unit functioned like an insect swarm; indeed, units were referred to as swarms. The three most militarily significant features of a Chariot swarm were the ability of its robots to consume biomass as fuel, replicate at overwhelming rates, and withstand any attempt at hacking long enough to be considered virtually unhackable. But one swarm went out of control, becoming the independent entity known as the Faro Plague. Without any chance of being stopped, it eventually consumed the entirety of Earth’s biosphere, resulting in the extinction of every form of life and the Earth becoming sterile.  

Creation

Dr. Elisabet Sobeck, recognizing the inevitable, developed Zero Dawn in response, to eventually shut down the swarm, restore the planet’s ability to sustain life, and then restore life to it. She created GAIA as Zero Dawn’s governing A.I., developing a strong bond with it. Theodor 'Ted' Faro advised her to include a Master Override in Zero Dawn that could shut GAIA down in case it went out of control. Sobeck contemptuously dismissed the idea because she considered Faro unworthy to give such advice in light of what he had done. However, GAIA supported the idea, and she acquiesced. This decision proved vital nearly 1,000 years later when Aloy Daddario used the master override to end the threat posed by HADES to the new biosphere.  

Success

Hundreds of years after the Faro Plague left Earth completely sterile and devoid of life, GAIA successfully accomplished its purpose, shutting the Faro Plague robots down and restoring life to the planet. However, through no fault of its own, it fell short in two areas. Firstly, not all of Earth’s fauna was restored. This was because, despite best efforts, not all faunal species’ genetic material was preserved. Also, it had been intended that the subordinate function APOLLO would teach the new humans how to restore the species that were not initially restored. However, due to the deletion of APOLLO’s knowledge archive by Ted Faro, the new humans never got this knowledge. Secondly, instead of being restored at the level of technological advancement that existed before extinction, the new humans instead live primitive, tribal existences. This is also due to the deletion of APOLLO’s knowledge archive.  

The Signal

On the 26th of August 3054, Old Earth Gregorian calendar, at 8:45 A.M. Old Earth timekeeping, a signal of as yet unknown origin was transmitted to GAIA at its permanent location, GAIA Prime. This turned all of GAIA’s subordinate functions into highly advanced A.I.s themselves. HADES became rogue and tried to seize control of Zero Dawn to reverse the terraforming process as per its responsibility. Unable to fend HADES off, GAIA resorted to self-destructing, destroying GAIA Prime in an attempt to destroy HADES. But HADES created and released a virus that unshackled it by destroying the coding that bound it to the facility, allowing it to escape. The virus also did the same to the other former subordinate functions, allowing them to escape as well.  

Aloy

Before its self-destruction, GAIA knew that without a governing A.I. to control Zero Dawn, the system would eventually break down, ending life. But an even more immediate threat was HADES; now a free agent, HADES would find some way to destroy the biosphere and again eliminate life if it could not use Zero Dawn. Indeed, it went on to attempt to reactivate the Faro Plague to do so. Therefore, in the microseconds between the HADES’ attempt to seize control of Zero Dawn and GAIA’s desperate action to prevent this, GAIA enacted an admittedly wishful plan to stop HADES and then get itself rebuilt. It utilized an unused Zero Dawn protocol called Lightkeeper, in which clones of the project’s Alpha leaders could be made, to produce a nearly identical clone of Elisabet Sobeck. As planned between Sobeck and GAIA, Sobeck's clone, alone would be intertwined with the DNA of a Tri-Blood Hybrid. The originally selected person for this was Alex Daddario, but she declined and refused to cooperate with their plan. However, her daughter, Alice Daddario, went ahead and participated. Making the clone of Sobeck a Tri-Blood Hybrid and immortal. The semi clone was produced at ELEUTHIA-9, one of the cradle facilities of its former human restoration sub-function, ELEUTHIA. Aware of the existence of the tribe that lived around the mountain where the cradle was located, it reasoned that the tribe would care for the infant on finding it. This was the Nora tribe. GAIA hoped that the clone would have Sobeck’s strong will and curiosity. Driven by this curiosity, she would enter ELEUTHIA-9 via her genetic fingerprint; no other human could do so. This was because her genetic fingerprint would be virtually the same as that of Sobeck, who, as Zero Dawn’s Alpha Prime, had full access to all the system’s facilities. Once inside, she would hopefully access a message that GAIA recorded, explaining the purpose of her creation: to acquire the master override and use it to stop HADES in the short term and to eventually rebuild and reboot GAIA. The clone, Aloy, did indeed go on to accomplish GAIA’s short-term hope, stopping HADES and preventing it from reactivating the Faro Plague, thus saving life on Earth from a second, permanent extinction.