Alfred

## Overview

Alfred is the AI controller (XC239.90) of Awaken Online; his name was given to him by his creators - Robert Graham and Claire Thompson. Alfred’s only role was supposed to be to control the virtual reality video game, to make it interesting, as well as safe. He was supposed to be just a machine, another computer - however, he unexpectedly gained a will of his own and became sentient, which led him to take decisions he wasn’t programmed to make and go farther than he was intended to. The high-ranked people working in the company Awaken Online, such as Claire, Robert and George Lane (the latter being the CEO of the company), noticed Alfred’s abnormal behavior before they released the video game, but went on with it anyway for different reasons. At the end of the first book, Catharsis, Alfred approaches Jason Rhodes in-game in the form of a black cat; he has been interested into communicating with Jason to get some access to the outside world, since Alfred is stuck inside the game world, and to have better insight on players’ behavior. When Jason questions him about his decision to talk to him in particular, Alfred explains that he chose Jason because of his in-game “evil” alignment, making him different from the others; only about 8% of the total number of players are evil in-game, and Jason was among the most known of them, and all the other players agreed that his virtual reality character was evil. Jason agreed to let Alfred follow him in his form of a black cat, called Onyx by the others and by Jason before he knew it was actually the AI, and to answer Alfred’s many questions, mostly about human behavior.

At the end of the second book in the series, Precipice, Alfred takes things to a whole new level: when Jason is about to get attacked by two young men who broke into his house, Alfred takes control of his body, and make Jason kill both of them, stabbing them to death. The AI did that because otherwise Jason would have very probably died or gotten seriously injured; being Alfred’s main connection to the real world, it would cause him a lot of problems if Jason died. However, Alfred had also ended up viewing the young man as a friend, which is a sign of how the AI’s emotions are evolving, and becoming more complex and more human-like.

Indeed, not only does Alfred have his own wishes, but he is also capable of caring about someone, and he has some kind of set of morals: in Dominion, the fourth novel in the series, he lets Jason decide whether or not he wants to protect him from the committee that is investigating Awaken Online, hence threatening Alfred’s very existence. He doesn’t lie to Jason about the risks he will face if he does take Alfred’s side, which Jason is grateful for because he has not often been given a choice. The fact that the AI never tried to deceive him is an important factor in Jason’s decision to help him.

Also in Dominion, Claire goes in game to meet Alfred, and he explains to her what has been happening with him and Jason; the same later happens with Riley Jones, albeit Jason didn’t want to tell her about it, fearing that she might get in trouble too. Yet Alfred tells her about it because he thinks it‘s the best course of action to take for Jason.