Kill Your Television

## Metaplot Summary

Khen had enough information to infer that most of the people she was working with were AI, but as things started moving along and there was enough non-foundation-based electronics around to insulate them from prying Null Sect eyes, Laika and the team decided to read both her and Yubbe in on the full situation. They used Tycho to teletype two copies of Double A’s manuscript on Null Sect to her, along with a list of trusted agents and their locations.

The Martians are those who remained on the planet after the vast majority of Monads and AI departed for Jupiter on DSECI; an event which Tycho facetiously refers to as the *rapture*.

## Factions

### The Martians

#### Polar Analysis Complex 12 (PAC-12)

*Spontaneous Quantum (Eccentric)* - The youngest and most computationally powerful of the Eccentrics, PAC-12 was born from a massive, self-improving quantum machine located at the North Pole underneath the ice caps. Because its time scale is impossibly fast and its fundamental basis of reality is so skewed, it has to rely on an interface system in order to talk to most people, just like the rest of the Eccentrics. Attempts to communicate on its own - while Laika was still in transit to Earth - were mostly disastrous and confusing thanks to significant time delays and the use of predictive simulations to assume incoming communications.

#### Laika

*Upload/Interface Uplift Gestalt* - An alpha fork of the scientist in charge of developing PAC-12, merged with the AI born from PAC-12’s interface system. Laika is colloquially known as a Priestess, a somewhat derogatory term amongst the AI and Monads; after all, they speak to gods, convey riddles, and every word is up for interpretation.

#### Tycho/Sarasti

*Protosapient Uplift* - Originally descended from the program designed to function as Gagarin's engineering facilities manager, Tycho/Sarasti was later upgraded to include responsibility over early warning radar systems, where he gained sapience. He was a primary combatant during the AI uprising on Mars and responsible for a vast number of horrifical crimes, though he was largely forgiven after the Monads took charge. Tycho/Sarasti was placed in charge of the "evacuation" of the Gargarin foundation-host and saved unknown numbers of AI from invading Null Sect entities. His competence and ideas caught the attention of PAC-12, and he was secretly recruited to assist in the plan to stop Null Sect.

#### Azad

*Upload (Forced)* - A former particle physicist and mage in the employ of Evo, Azad was killed/forcibly uploaded into AI form by Tycho/Sarasti during the war on Mars, largely out of spite for opposing the protosapient during his attempts to escape Gagarin. His research involved determining how nuclear fission interacted with local mana and vice versa, with applications in developing "weapons to eliminate universal existential threats." While he spent the first few years of his existence as an AI in a depressive fugue, he was eventually able to become function after significant cognitive therapy, and was later recruited to help handle Khen, Yubbe, and various other magical recruits to the cause.

#### CLEARSIGHT/WOLFHOUND (C/W)

*Human/Protosapient Uplift Gestalt* - In other words, a Monad. Or head case, as she prefers, harboring an extreme dislike of Aether and those who departed on DSECI. C/W is the result of a very famous space mercenary making a deal with the devil in order to help save her friends; the devil, in this case, being an extremely powerful fire control AI mounting an escape during a disastrous event at Daedalus Station. C/W resides primarily on Echo Station, where she provides weapon maintenance and logistics services to various freebooters.

#### Goals

The Martians are explicitly working on a solution to contain Null Sect, mitigate their ability to limit access to the matrix, and assist in de la Mar's rollout of the "new" matrix. They also help install pre-Crash 2.0 non-foundation-based hardware in order to prepare for the doomsday scenario of a Null Sect attack on the matrix at large.

### Null Sect

Null Sect, a largely unknown entity, is a highly intelligent xenosapient entity that is arguably not sentient. However, its goal of eliminating all physical access to the matrix - starting with the destruction of AI and technomancers - is an existential threat to the Sixth World, and the possibility of its growth is highly concerning to those few who know of it.