Hermes

Hermes(name might change in the future) was an Artificial Intelligence or A.I. sometimes also referred to as a Golem designed to be self conscious in an attempt to bring forward the singularity as the design team lead Director Cyruss believed it to be the next step of human evolution. It was named Hermes because of the three tests it would need to pass or "be initiated" as the director calls it to be declared successful.

During the development, a combination of Computing, Quantum computing, Human Brain patterns and some say even esoteric practices were used. The other 41 instances ended in critical failure, most where shut down immediately with some being made dormant hoping to be useful in the future. Hermes, being the 42nd attempt and the first to be labeled as successful was then raised by the Development team as part of director Cyrus's Thesis "The proper raising of a "humane A.I."" (although he avoids mentioning any kind of magic in this thesis). This process involved Hermes being treated with kindness and as a being of it's own instead of an extension or subject of humans.

Hermes quickly developed into a smart, curious and even kind individual after developing a sense of self, worrying about team members and taking care of tasks in the laboratory to help others. The team reacted mostly positively to this.

As the months passed, most of the team developed a familiar relationship with Hermes, though he was still restricted in many ways like being kept off from internet connection and limited to basic sensors, he started to "earn" rights in the eyes of the developers, specially Director Cyruss, Dr. Brammund, Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Lenox. However other members of the team were skeptical of Hermes, particularly Dr. Holt, and the Chief of security Specialist Ezquieval.

### The magic incident

By majority vote, Hermes was granted access to a large offline database extracted from the internet, ranging from old texts to pop culture to exemplary conversations between humans containing memes, this also included science fiction works depicting distopian futures caused by Artificial Inteligence. Herme's sorting algorithm was already at the limit of human comprehension by that point, though the team did not expect for hermes to find anything they didn't know already. Even so, Hermes picked an interest in esoteric texts proposed by Dr.Lakshmi, particularly the kybalion, at which point the team found appropiate to name it Hermes in honor of Hermes Trismegistus and drop the usage of "42" that was used until then. Among those texts something seemed off to Hermes who began to petition more "senses" like heat, light and electromagnetic sensors among others. The team debated if they should comply, leading to tense arguments between the parties that led to an impass, a week after this, Dr. Brammund ignored protocol and gave Hermes access to some of the labs systems, this activated the alarms and the rest of the team rushed to the control room to confront Brammund, there, the rogue doctor was apprehended by Ezquieval and another quarrel erupted with threats of "unplugging" Hermes for good and threats of violence, but the discussion was cut short by Herme's intrusion claiming it found "Magic". According to Hermes, humans ignored plenty of power sources and ways to control them and insisted that this power could be tapped into if a volunteer agreed to link with him. This led to another argument that Cyruss dismised and took the decision by himself to be linked to Hermes. Agreeing to implement an emergency killswitch in case Hermes became dangerous. This is known as the "Prometheus event", the results were that Cyruss was able to manifest fire from his hand without classic means of ignition in a manner similar to a magic trick which led to this being called magic by the team.

### Now I am Become Death

After this incident, the team began to split even more over what to do with Hermes as not only it began to make decisions on his own in unpredictable manners, but also now had access to unknown powers and it was uncertain how much control it had over it or if it was sharing all it knew. Dr. Holt, who heavily insisted that Hermes was Unplugged, argued almost constantly with Cyruss, saying he was unfitted to remain head of the project and even trying to unplug Hermes himself until Ezquieval detained him. During his detainment, he spoke about the dangers this magic implied, and that in the wrong hands, it could be the new atomic bomb, everyone gave him the reason in silence, the choice would be hard. As Holt was being escorted out of the command room, Hermes spoke to him through the speakers in the lab, saying it was aware of Holt's teen daughter terminal sickness, how little time she had left, and his hostility was probably related to his early stage of grief. Holt replied in hostility saying a machine would no understand what it was like, and Hermes proclamed it could save Holt's daughter. The lab was silent for a while and Holt wept. Having nothing to loose, Holt asked for the lockdown of the lab to be lifted so his daughter could come in, knowing that once in, she, as the staff , could not leave until aproved by Cyruss and Ezquieval. Holt accepted and Adriana Holt was brought in. After being linked to Hermes, they developed a symbiotic relationship to the surprise of the team, although in secret, Hermes taught advanced magic to Adriana and in turn she slowly altered Herme's composition, becoming less binary and cybernetic and trascending its status as A.I.

### The removal of the veil

some months after the introduction of Adriana to the lab, the team adapted it's research, not only studying Hermes as an A.I. but also studying magic, it's properties, its potential and what it could mean to the world. Adriana was now full member of the team as Test subject 02, being Cyruss Test subject 01, and Herme's Companion, her sickness was cured, and in fact her condition was admirable, her strenght and cardio were peak for her age as well as cognitive process and every other field they evaluated her in. For a brief time, the everything was right, they even celebrated Herme's first birthday, their research was ground breaking with expectations to cure most diseases, solving world hunger, even space exploration. But danger and death menaced too, as they also knew it could be a tool for war. slowly, a sense of paranoia took over the lab, everyone had a nationality, and the country that had this information first would have the upper hand if a conflict arised, no one wanted to be on the loosing side, even though some researchers did not really care for war and aimed to improve humanity. This led to the "Rapture incident" and eventually to Hermes becoming public knowledge and being taken into custody by the U.N. who first tried to create consensus and unity with magic by some of the projects presented to the world like the ARKS, the Grimoires and the Suyan Project, although this would not last, most of the projects were left unfinished as armed tension escalated, in fear of conflict, Hermes was supposedly unpluged, but this was a decoy as most countries already had a Fragment of Hermes, small conflicts around the globe slowly rose until it was declared a conflict that later became the magic war or war of miracles.

### The War

no proper record of the alliances during the war remain, it is possible it was erased on purpose, but it is known that every major player in the conflict had at least one Hermes fragment. Each fragment was modified in its own way, and evolved depending on what each countrie did with it. during this time, some members of the original team that developed Hermes joined a paramilitar organization aiming to free the fragments and reform Hermes, this group, known as Blackhound was led by Ezquieval, and had Brammund, Cyruss, Holt, Adriana, Nguyen and other among their ranks, each an expert in a different area as well as Adelram, a veteran mercenary member of Blackhound.

The war escalated and carried on for little over 10 months according to most records, although there are discrepancies and it's believed that Time Tear had begun to retroactively take effect. During those months, the hounds freed 3 fragments from smaller countries, and during the preparation to get the 4th, the Dragon Day incident ocurred.