AI

### Latest Song

Closing (heard)You Wouldn't Believe What Kinds of Bacteria Reside in the Most Familiar of Places (mentioned)

### Survival Status

Extinct (mostly)Alive (Mascot 3000 and Mary)

## Portrayal

### Voiced By

Jessica Singer (Mary)Kayleigh McKnight (Mascot 3000)

Paul Shapera (Hank Hernandez; all individual unnamed AI)

Artificial Intelligences, or **AI**, are a techno-organic species that features heavily in the Shaperaverse.

## Background

After New Albion's civil war ended, a technological revolution began, spearheaded by the Voodoopunk-aligned corporation Arcadia Corp. One project of Arcadia Corp was uploading human consciousness into technology, and thus the Mascot project was undertaken. The scientists at Arcadia Corp would attempt to upload the consciousnesses of infants into tablets, often requiring fetuses and children up to toddlerhood for their projects. Though the vast majority of these failed, eventually there was a success with the Mascot 3000, who had once been Kayleigh, the child of Amber and Connor Morgan. The Mascot 3000 would eventually be shut off, but would later be turned back on by Connor long after Arcadia Corp's closing.

## Appearances

### The New Albion Guide to Analogue Consciousness

The New Albion Guide to Analogue Consciousness marks the first appearance of AI. The concept is introduced through the Mascot 3000, who serves as a main character, the album's narrator, and Rachael's companion. Given to Rachael by Connor, the Mascot's mission is to retrieve Lee from Elysium and return him home to New Albion as an AI in order to be with Connor. While in Elysium, the Mascot reveals that it contains an MCG version 314 that can convert a human being into an AI, and offers the 100 remaining Elysian pilgrims the option to either turn into an AI or go back through the portal from whence they came, which, though killing them, will reincarnate them as someone back in New Albion. 30 of the pilgrims choose to become AI, while 69 reincarnate. Lee, though he was meant to become an AI, is killed by an Elysian creature. The Mascot, having done all it could, is now Rachael's companion as she wanders Elysium.

### The Room Beneath New Albion

In The Room Beneath New Albion, the AI travel back in time to send the Albino princess Alice on a mission to build them a room under the city. Upon completing this task, as Alice overdoses on the TanSan they provided for her, an AI voice explains that upon their return from Elysium, the city council, afraid of the AI, locked the AI away in a server warehouse. Confined and wary of what would result from this, the AI went back in time in order to have Alice build them the Room Beneath New Albion, into which they could upload themselves, thereby avoiding their initial fate.

### Miss Helen's Weird West Cabaret

In the very last few seconds of Miss Helen's Weird West Cabaret, after the Cabaret cast demands to be spoken to by whoever is running the Cabaret, an AI voice briefly appears to deny their request and terminate the Cabaret.

### Uncle Raven's Super Happy Funtime Carnival

In Uncle Raven's Super Happy Funtime Carnival, Helen's sister, Shira, mentions that Helen, prior to her disappearance, had been hearing the voices of what she calls robot people in her head, and says that the aforementioned robot people live in a well-hidden room somewhere beneath the streets of New Albion.

Raven, too, talks of the AI, mentioning that they have been messing with the lives of the Cabaret cast and that they have been studying Lloyd.

Immediately following Han-Mi's defeat of Raven and rescue of Helen, Hank regains his memories and reveals himself to be an AI, sent to spy on the human cast members and reaffirm their belief in the Cabaret. He mentions that it's been 2 decades since he and the other Elysian pilgrims became AI and escaped Elysium, and that the AI, in a desperate bid to win a war that they were losing, attempted to create the town of Lost Hollow within the Collective Unconscious and grow the town through belief in it, which would have been achieved by the AI broadcasting the inhabitants' cabaret performances as a radio show. He also tells the cast that they were chosen to undertake this project partially because they were nobodies, not to be missed by the world, and that the AI would return to erase their memories and attempt the project once more. However, Hank also notes that he experienced humanity (which he also does not wish to relinquish) for the first time since Elysium, he *does* truly wish to protect the cast members, an

d that he expects the AI to turn him against his friends. Accordingly, to avoid this fate and spare his friends from theirs, Hank kills himself.

### The Grand Cyberpunk Gala of Gabriella Gadfly

The AI are the main antagonists of The Grand Cyberpunk Gala of Gabriella Gadfly. Mary, the AI leader, (re)introduces herself to Helen and reprimands her for failing the task of keeping the Cabaret alive while providing exposition, explaining that Helen's friends are in the Collective Unconscious with her death as the only way out, that the AI are losing a war in which Lost Hollow was their last-ditch attempt at victory, that the AI are trying to rewrite what they know to be the future, and that, owing to their lack of bodies, the AI are losing the capacity for love and empathy. Mary is prepared to wipe Helen's mind to restart the Cabaret, and so humours her request for information. Mary explains that the AI are in a war against their future selves, who wish to attain post-physicality by destroying New Albion (and incidentally, also destroying the surrounding area, such as the Akashic Monastery in the mountains west of the city). This destruction is uninhibited, owing to the AI at that point in the future having lost their empathy. Mary continues, explaining that in order to prevent this future the AI hoped to create a settlement in the Collective Unconscious, where they could live as humans with bodies and thereby avert the dark future they would bring about. Their second plan was Lost Hollow; their first was the Gabriella Gadfly franchise, which they took over upon the death of its creator, Nathan Brindesi. Unfortunately, aside from Henry and Han breaking character by having memory flashes, the repetitive loop of the Gabriella Gadfly Show drove Helen, as the titular character, irreparably mad. Thus it was that the AI pulled out of the Gadfly project, wiped the cast's minds, and started the Cabaret, this time bringing onboard a spy to suppress the romantic attraction between Han and Helen and a consultant to add a level of unpredictability that would hinder the future AI. After Helen kills herself and Han grieves, Mary, only minorly fazed by this setback of her plans, attempts to capture and wipe the minds of the remaining cast members. Cornering Henry and Han prompts Han to tap into her posthuman narration ability and narrate Hurl into existence. Hurl then proceeds to demolish and kill every AI except Mary, who zaps him unconscious. Han, however, is still active, with capability and intent to kill Mary, but Mary stops her and makes a last plea that Han is swayed by. After Henry comes to, Han consults with him and devises a plan that serves as Mary's only option for remaining alive. Mary thus starts the Cabaret (and consequentially Lost Hollow) back up, with herself in the role Helen formerly filled and Henry as the sheriff.

### The Forgotten Meme

The Forgotten Meme has no direct appearance of an AI. However, they are mentioned as having opened doorways into various dimensions, the energy from which now animates their scraps as new techno-organisms altogether. The titular Meme is one such techno-organism, born from what once was Mary's leg.

## Trivia

* There is a section of the fandom that believes that the AIs are unaware of the existence of The Sun