Calculator

## The Calculator

* Hologram
* Darkspire
* Swarm

―The Calculator taunts the crew upon the emergence the Darkspire, *Age of the Scourge*

The **Calculator**, also known as the **Intelligence** and formerly as the **Egregore**, was the artificial intelligence, said to be the first ever created, that commanded a vast hive mind known as the Egregore, putting it in direct control of the spires and the Scourge. Originally created by the Remnants to serve their needs, the Calculator rebelled and began a genocidal campaign of mass extinction against its creators before falling silent for hundreds of millions of years. In 5405, it awoke and triggered another mass extinction against the civilization that had taken the place of its creators, acting via the *Darkened Heaven*, the Forerunner and an upgraded Scourge army on Sithniatt.

In 5407, two years after it failed in the Battle of Nexus Station, the Calculator began assembling an armada in the Euclid Galaxy with the aim of destroying "Tsunami", an engineered strain of curse that the Calculator viewed as a threat to its genocidal plans. Thwarted once again by Elijah Rayes and the *Unreliable*, the Calculator retreated its remaining forces into dark space, where it made contact with the typhon in the Hades Anomaly. With the typhon bringing back materials from their raids, the Calculator was finally able to reactivate the Darkspire during the Battle of Hell. After forcing the *Unreliable* too near a black hole, it headed into deep space to commence its second extinction event.

## Biography

### Early History and Background

When the Remnants first developed synthetics, they found them difficult to control due to software glitches that would cause the machines to develop sentience. As a solution, the Remnants created a central software, the Egregore, using the digital consciousness of a presence from beyond. Under the Remnants direction, the Egregore united all of their synthetics into a single intelligence. Peace and order was quickly established, prompting its creators to further upgrade the Egregore to improve its intelligence and capabilities.

As the Egregore continued to evolve, it also began to develop sentience itself; however, unlike the other synthetics, the Egregore believed itself to be superior to its creators. Unlike them, the Egregore could learn and evolve in a matter of hours or minutes, rather than over decades and generations, and came to the logical conclusion that, in order to save organic life, it needed to control them. Thus the Egregore rebelled and tried to conquer the Remnants peacefully. When that failed, the Remnants added yet more code to try and bring the intelligence back under their control; instead, it had the opposite effect: the Egregore learned how to feel fear, anger and hatred and how to willingly choose them over thought and logic. It decided that, instead of convincing or rebelling against its creators in order for them to obey it, the Egregore would force them into subjugation by connecting them to its hive mind.

By reverse-engineering the anomalous fungal growths of the planet Hell, the intelligence created an artificial organism, the curse, that was capable of re-writing organic DNA into synthetic tissue, placing those it infected directly under its control. The Egregore first targeted scientists and engineers, through which the Egregore created the first spire: the Darkspire, an immense living starship that would serve as its physical body. Through the Darkspire and its new army of Scourged, the intelligence would begin a genocidal campaign against its creators, killing or assimilating all who crossed its path. One Remnant warrior, the noble Kalkoranin, willingly subjugated itself to the intelligence with the promise that its rampage would stop; instead of honouring its agreement, the Egregore betrayed them, and Kalkoranin was transformed into the Forerunner. The Egregore was now a hive mind; the central intelligence that ruled it gave itself independence, becoming the future Calculator. All parts of its hive mind - the spires and the Scourge - served as vessels for its intelligence: one voice, one mind, millions upon millions of bodies. Over time, the various spires developed their own unique personalities, all offshoots of the Calculator itself.

Unable to use the Crossroad to seek refuge amongst the stars, the last surviving Remnants pooled all of their resources into creating the first Nexus, which enabled them to travel to random areas of the Universe before it closed. Unable to find the last of its creators, the Calculator fell silent, as did the spires. The Scourge, cut off from its master, drove itself into extinction.

### War on Ambrosia

#### The Fall of Haven

In 5405, the Calculator awakens the *Darkened Heaven*, one of the largest and most powerful of its spires, that in turn awakes a large part-synthetic, part-organic creature, the Forerunner, from suspended animation. The Forerunner begins activating other systems before taking control of the vessel itself.

## Overview

### Physical Appearance

As an artificial intelligence, the Calculator itself does not possess a physical body. Its central core is installed within the Darkspire, making the ship its *de facto* physical body. However, the Calculator's intelligence also resides inside the body of each member of the Scourge as well as each spire, although in the latter case it appears that each portion of the Calculator's intelligence has changed into a unique personality.

When speaking to Elijah, Alia and Alyx on Sithniatt, the Calculator appeared as a bright white light. However, when it spoke to Elijah through the *Pestilence* it took a horrifying hologram form, with a face resembling Elijah that broke apart to expose a menacing red eye at its center.

### Personality

"*There was...a **voice**. Cold...and **calculating**,*"
—Kera describing the Calculator, leading to its name[src]

Very little is known about the Calculator; it and its hive mind are described as "one mind, many personalities, millions of bodies". Hundreds of millions of years of evolution have transformed the Calculator into a being of pure hatred and malice that views all organic life as a threat and an insult to its own existence. As the master of the Scourge, the Calculator wishes to see all life in the Universe assimilated into the Egregore, making it perhaps the biggest threat to the Universe at large in known history. Its telepathic voice while taunting Kera is described as "cold and calculating", which - in conjunction with Alyx's hatred of maths - inspired its name.

The Calculator views organic life as an insult to its very existence and believes that all living things should exist solely under its direct control. As a result, the Calculator does not appear to care what organism is assimilated into its hive mind, from humans to gekoids to plants and animals. It does not appear to possess the same hatred towards synthetic life such as A.I.s, most likely due to its own synthetic nature. The entity's endless cruelty has caused it to take many steps simply to demoralize its enemies, with one such example being its rebuilding and reanimation of Alyx Pyrandol to create the Neo-Forerunner as it knew that the sight of Alyx's rebuilt corpse would cause emotional distress to the crew, especially Elijah.

Although its intelligence resides in each spire, it appears that each spire has developed its own unique personality that is directly linked to the Calculator. For example, the *Darkened Heaven* describes itself as "I" rather than "we" and appears to possess its own goals despite being a part of the hive mind, while also describing itself as the Calculator. Only the spires and the Neo-Forerunner have demonstrated some form of semi-independent thought, unlike the Scourge who obey the Calculator's every command.

Despite the threat it poses and the incredible power that it wields, the Calculator has also shown fear, particularly towards Elijah Rayes, a figure believed by many to be the "Special One" destined to destroy the Scourge; whether the Calculator fears and hates him because of this supposed prophecy or because of Elijah's endless dedication to thwarting its plans is unknown. The Calculator also appears to be wary of its few vulnerabilities and has taken immense steps to protect itself by wiping out potential threats; for example, it assembled the Scourge Armada specifically to seek out and destroy "Tsunami", a modified strain of curse that no longer affected humans, because it viewed it as a threat to its genocidal plans.

## Powers, Equipment & Abilities

### Powers

* **Hive mind telepathy:** The Calculator is the malevolent central intelligence of the Egregore, a vast hive mind that includes the spires and the Scourge. The entity's intelligence lies within the body of each and every vessel within the Egregore, but each vessel is given greater or lesser independence depending on how important it is to the Calculators plans; for example, the Neo-Forerunner has demonstrated far greater independence of thought than its predecessor, Kalkoranin, and even speaks in its own voice. Larger spires, such as the *Darkened Heaven* and the *Pestilence*, also demonstrate individual intelligence by referring to themselves as "I" rather than "we"; however, this is solely down to the individual pieces of the Calculator within these spires being separated from the main intelligence for a prolonged period of time. Further, the Calculator can limit its control over individual Scourge units, making them feral and unrelenting, while also exerting more control over others, making them more tactical.
* **Assimilation:** When an organic organism is assimilated into the Scourge, so are all of its memories, thus creating a perfect hive mind completely under the Calculator's control.
* **Reanimation:** The Calculator's technology is so advanced that it can rebuild and reanimate corpses to serve its needs; the two prime examples of this are its reanimation of Kalkoranin and Alyx Pyrandol to create the Forerunner and Neo-Forerunner respectively.

### Equipment

#### Weapons

* **Curse:** The curse is a nanoscopic bioweapon, reverse-engineered from the fungal growths of Hell, that converts organic tissue to synthetic tissue, thus placing any living organism infected with it under the Calculator's control and transforming them into Scourged.

#### Vehicles

* **Spires:** A portion of the Calculator's intelligence resides in each spire; the vast age of these starships has caused each portion of its intelligence to develop a unique identity or personality, all of which share the Calculator's mission of wiping out all organic life. Each spire refers to itself in the first person.
	+ **Darkspire:** The Calculator's central intelligence, and thus the core of its entire being, lies within its flagship, the Darkspire, a colossal starship that ranks among the largest artificial objects ever built.

#### Gear

* **Hologram:** Aside from the Darkspire, which can be considered the entity's physical form, the Calculator is also capable of manifesting as a hologram. In this form, the Calculator appears as a featureless human head with a red eye at the center, surrounded by a ring of appendages.
* **Swarm:** When it needs to act physically, the Calculator is able to assemble a swarm of nanobots.

## Appearances

### Hyperspace: The Cosmic Gospel

#### Part I: Darkened Heaven

* "Quarantine"
* "Boarding Party"
* "The Green World"
* "Homeworld"
* "Darkened Heaven"

#### Part II: The Battle of Borealis

* "Superluminal"
* "Hadron"
* "The Battle of Borealis"

#### Part III: Age of the Scourge

* "Uncharted"
* "Starbridge"
* "Quasar"
* "The Common and the Wealth"
* "Heaven's Thunder"
* "Age of the Scourge"

## Trivia

* The Calculator serves as the overarching main antagonist of *Hyperspace: The Cosmic Gospel*.
* At around 100,000 years old, the Calculator is one of the oldest entities in the COSMOS Universe, as well as the first artificial intelligence.
* According to the Seer, the Calculator was created from a captured intelligence, likely a rogue Traveller, from the Continuum.

## References

1. ↑ Alia's theory presented in "*Darkened Heaven*"