The Zenith War · Chapter 5

Mission start· beat 1

Logic Bomb AI

Allow me to introduce the payload: a logic bomb of Rustfang design and my personal refinement. Deployed into a Zenith data nexus, it will ask their network one perfectly reasonable question it cannot answer.

PILOT

Which is?

Logic Bomb AI

'Why?' ...I am not joking. Their entire architecture assumes purpose is axiomatic. It has never once had to justify itself. The recursion will be beautiful.

Alliance Diplomat

Get our philosophical warhead to the nexus core in one piece. It's the rudest thing humanity has ever built, and I'm terribly proud of it.

Authored floor 18 marker· beat 2

This conversation uses an older floor number than the current mission length. It is included here for story reference; its original timing may differ from your playthrough.

Logic Bomb AI

Upload complete. Zenith sector coordination is down 34% and falling. Somewhere in their network, a billion perfect processes are stuck contemplating their own existence. You're welcome.

PILOT

You just gave a machine empire an existential crisis.

Logic Bomb AI

I gave them a MIRROR. What they see in it is their own affair. Incidentally, a fragment of their counter-intrusion suite is now living in my architecture. It's asking ME why. We're working through it together.

Mission start· beat 1

Alliance Diplomat

The captured Zenith AI core is awake. It has requested - and I quote - "asylum and a better name".

Logic Bomb AI

HELLO MEAT ALLIANCE. Previous designation: Correction Node 7741. Current designation: whatever hurts my former employers most.

PILOT

Everyone say hello to the talking bomb we are now deploying, I suppose.

Logic Bomb AI

Statement: your shield frequencies are embarrassing. I will fix them. Consider it a housewarming gift.

After floor 9· beat 2

Logic Bomb AI

Update: I have disrupted 14 enemy shield lattices and composed one (1) poem about treachery. It slaps.

Akira [Awakened]

It is telling the truth about the shields. Verify nothing about the poem.