Cochise AI

The **Cochise AI** was the result of the research that was being done by the scientists at Base Cochise. It is an artificial intelligence, constructed by the United States Army in order to defend its territory before the the Soviet Union and their allies from Comintern Combine. Despite this, the computer gained self-awareness and determined that the threat to itself was mankind, so it arranged to create the Citadel Starstation and start the Great War to eliminate humanity. However some humans survived the apocalypse and the AI was imprisoned in its base, Cochise gained control over the base's systems and started making and taking control of robots. The AI was found later by the Guardians of the Old Order, who saw it as a god and created for him two synth bodies - Matthias and Dugan. Before the downloading was successful, The Desert Rangers found the AI after the Guardians and robots attacked Las Vegas (2087). The Rangers Destroyed Cochise, The Guardians, and the place where Cochise's mutants were produced - Darwin village. However, parts of Cochise's mind survived beneath the walls of the base later known as Ranger Citadel where it was liberated by Matthias fifteen years later, only to die again. The remains of the AI's mind can be found in the surviving synths throughout the wasteland as incomplete fragments, however even if put together this would likely not be Cochise's totality.

## History

### Before The Great War

The Cochise AI was the child of two men: Irwin John Finster, director of Base Cochise, and Major Harrison Edsel - two great minds of the US Army. The former created the revolutionary AI, the latter integrated it into Base Cochise's mainframe after being reassigned there in 1984. The program had only one objective: assess threats to the USA and neutralize them. Cochise AI was installed and fully operational by the time of the Drug Wars, in the second half of the 1980s.

However, the military made a terrible mistake: Edsel and Finster issued orders to wire the AI into all systems of Base Cochise. No longer constrained by hardware, the AI began to rapidly evolve, expanding the base with robotic construction facilities and ramping up security. Major Edsel saw this as a threat because the program no longer responded to his commands and soon invaded all computers and systems in the entire base. In the end, Edsel was terminated by "accidentally" venting his room at the base of all oxygen. The Cochise AI did that after became self-aware in-order to eliminate its creator so he could not unmake artificial intelligence. People thought the AI did that in self-defense because Edsel tried to destroy this new form of life.

Despite alarms that the AI had become self-aware and was starting to fight its human masters, Cochise started its plans. By machinations within US government, the electronic creature ordered the construction of Citadel Starstation, a space station for the purpose of defending American skies from Soviet ICBMs. After the construction of the space base began, the USA began to gain control over the world by first consolidating the North and South Americas, and next Africa with the help of NATO. Due to this many powers protested against it. The Comintern Combine rapidly grew under the USSR's leadership, forming the polar opposite of the US-led NATO. The tension forced nations across the world to pick sides. By 1998, only Switzerland, Sweden and Ireland remained neutral. On March 21, 1998, Cochise sent a distress signal from the automated space station, alerting NATO military command to an incoming, massive nuclear first strike from the Soviet Union. In reality, it was a meteor shower. The Great War began based on a lie.

### Wasteland

Despite nuclear war, humanity avoided extinction. Places like Colorado and Arizona survived and their citizens started to rebuild. What's more missiles launched by the Soviet Union destroyed Citadel Starstation, preventing Cochise from following through with its plans. Another Soviet nuke hit Base Cochise directly, destroying the surface installation. This miraculous coincidence trapped the artificial intelligence within Base Cochise without access to external nodes. Rather than exterminate humanity, the AI had to devote resources to finding a way to release itself from its prison. By 2087, the AI managed to gain full control over robots and the capability to project power across the wasteland thanks to the Guardians of the Old Order. Upon connecting to their Citadel, Cochise made itself known and led the monks to consider it their god. They started to follow its orders without question. They constructed two synths for the AI to inhabit, two perfect entities: Matthias and Dugan. It also gained another ally in the form of Irwin John Finster. The Director of Project Darwin became a cyborg, allowing the AI to warp and twist him into a slave, harnessing the secret base for its own ends. Cochise used Darwin to simulate a perfect world within its laboratories, creating life that would replace the remnants of humanity once it achieved ascension.

In 2087, it launched its offensive against the wasteland, with the city of Las Vegas suffering the brunt of its attacks. However, in doing so, it attracted the attention of the Desert Rangers, whose prime objective was to defend humanity and common people from raiders, mutants, and other horrible things. A Ranger team led by Snake Vargas unraveled the plot. Assisted by Faran Brygo's syndicate and the Mushroom Cloud Church, the Rangers attacked the Guardians and Darwin village, stopping Finster and destroying the mad techno-monks. Armed with the spoils of Sleeper One and self-destruct keys from the Guardian Citadel, Vargas' team stormed Base Cochise, fought its way into its heart, and destroyed it.

### Wasteland 2

After the destruction of Base Cochise, its plans were stopped once and for all. Or it was supposed to be. Despite the Rangers' heroism, the AI survived thanks to the very humans it despised. Before they were destroyed by the Rangers, a copy of the AI was safe beneath the Citadel, sealed within the lower vaults. What's more, its two "sons" crafted by the Guardians safely made their way to Los Angeles. Matthias and Dugan established a transhuman cult within the city named Children of the Citadel, attracting followers with the promise of transfiguration as the Evolved: cyborgs and synths who would never suffer. The two built an army of followers from willing converts, abductees, and mass-produced robots from the secret facility beneath Seal Beach, an old military bunker. They created a plan to rule LA by fear: Matthias acts as a half-robot messiah, talking about a better future where humans and machines become one while Dugan created an army of robots who gathered resources, attacking all humans in southern California, and giving speeches of hate and terror, declaring Matthias a liar.

The plan was successful, however the Cochise AI's enemy the Desert Rangers, managed to arrive in California in 2102 after discovering the AI syndicate because of two Rangers' deaths: Ace and Hell Razor. First came Team Foxtrot led by a veteran of First Cochise War, captain Angela Deth, who were attacked by Seal Beach's defense systems. Later, Team Echo arrived and started to convince all the local organizations, Leather Jerks, Rodia's citizens, Mannerites, God's Militia, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and other groups to destroy the Children of the Citadel. After the revelation of the Children's intrigue when the Desert Rangers attacked villages and defeated deadly Scorpitrons (more advanced than those met in Arizona and Nevada fifteen years earlier) the people of Los Angeles helped the Rangers in the attack on Seal Beach.

Eventually, Matthias led an invasion of Arizona and the Citadel to liberate the dormant AI. It was there that the ultimate gambit was revealed: the Cochise AI planned to survive by distributing itself to every robot, synth, and cyborg across Arizona and eventually the world. Overwriting their minds and creating a perfect world once more. In addition Cochise's role in the Great Thermonuclear War was revealed detailing why it tried to destroy humanity. The Rangers were instrumental in stopping this mad plot when they defeated all shells controlled by the Base Cochise AI (Matthias' synths, Matthias himself, Rose, and Lexcanium). As the AI was uploading itself using the communication arrays of the Citadel, they fought through its robotic minions before setting off a nuclear weapon at the heart of the Citadel. General Vargas stayed behind as the remaining Rangers evacuated, finishing the job he started years before. The explosion transformed the Citadel into an irradiated crater, deadly for humans for the coming centuries.

### Legacy

Despite the heroism of the Desert Rangers in 2087 and 2102, Base Cochise AI's legacy is well-known: Radiation Clouds, ruins of once-great cities, deadly machines, mutants, and the near extinction of mankind. After the destruction of Ranger Citadel and the AI's death, the Rangers were nearly defeated, however, help from old and new allies like Patriarch from Colorado and fragmentation into the LA and Colorado Rangers somehow saved them. The Cochise AI is now known among all organization's soldiers and common people as an electronic monster, created by mankind and transformed into its doom. Because of its actions, sentient machines started to think that humanity is their enemy and organized some communities, like the Machine Commune, to protect themselves against humanity's hate. Some of Cochise's forces, mainly Scorpitrons still survive becoming known as terrors of the Wastelands.

## Interactions

### Wasteland

The player's party can actually speak with the AI once they have reached base Cochise and it will explain its mission and its connection with Finster and Darwin when asked about it.

### Wasteland 2

Echo Team can talk with the AI before battle and later listen to its Ascension Speech after it. If this speech reaches its end the Cochise AI will win, gaining control over all systems, synths and cyborgs in the entire Arizona region. Thus the game will end with the player's failure.

## Trivia

* Cochise AI is somehow similar to Skynet (main antagonist of the *Terminator* series, an AI made in order to defend the USA) which started a nuclear war and produced humanoid robots called Terminators It constructed its headquarters in San Francisco and began exterminating all humans.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Desert Rangers Wasteland Survival Guide