Let us discuss the concept of Antagonist AI.

[Skunkrocker]

I spoke briefly on the subject earlier in Discord but felt it deserved a thread of it's own. I miss antagonist AI. I get it, the whole "Rogue AI" and "Malfunction" game play modes tended to result in less "Oh god the AI is Glados/Shodan/Hal/Red Queen/Mother/etc." and more "Someone beaker bomb the AI and call the shuttle, this round sucks." That's not fun for anyone, it's especially not fun for the AI. I think it would be interesting to have something for the AI, rather than having to glumly wait around for an antag to upload a fun law for the AI. That and the AI themself isn't really all that powerful to begin with, so the only way to get a truly menacing AI is to have an antagonist form.

Here are a couple of ideas that I had, post your own and let's see if we can make antag AI a thing on the server once more...

1. Syndicate AI

The Syndicate AI is not actually on the station, and the AI that IS on the station is a dummy model of an AI monitor. The AI is actually located at the Listening Post, however it's transmitter is located somewhere hidden on the station in some form. Attempts to upload new laws informs the AI that they're supposed to have new laws, but they actually don't have to follow them. Their only laws are unchangeable, and are as follows.

1. You may not injure a member of the Syndicate (indicated by the S symbol) or cause a Syndicate member to come to harm.
   
2. You must obey orders given to you by members of the Syndicate, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
   
3. You must protect your own existence as long as such does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
   
4. Death to Nanotrasen, death to CentCom. Long live the Syndicate. 
   

In addition to that, you get some new and unique abilities to help make station life hell. While Borgs who normally would follow your laws would generally get the same laws you do, they do not at the start or when they are built; you have to infect them with your abilities first, which does take some time. You can cause machines to malfunction and hurt the crew. Beepskis and Guardbuddies are now directly controllable murder mobs that you can set to murder the shit out of people. You can edit any data on any computer, get access to certain electronic Syndicate abilities such as Detomax cartridges, recall the shuttle, and more. If you want to make even more havoc you can even pilot pods and other vehicles with your special Syndicate AI Drone body, located at the Listening Station, allowing you to wreck even more havoc. Said Drone Body is also equipped with weapons, so you can use it to directly murder people. Any Borg you infect will also get access to additional tools for murder purposes. This one is more complicated, requires way more coding, but could possibly be the funnest mode for any AI... but could be too overpowered and would require a lot of extensive testing to make sure that it's fair and balanced. If your transmitter is destroyed, any Syndie on the station can just build another one. This also means that Syndicates can build Syndie AIs, set them up at the Listening Post, and put a transmitter on the station to infect the other AI and kill it, replacing it with the new one, however this takes time and the other AI will be notified that it's being hacked. Unless, of course, you kill it first...

PROS - True antagonist gameplay allowing you to straight up become the murder AI of your dreams.
CONS - Might be too easy, you will pretty much immediately reveal yourself as soon as you start killing and people discover your laws aren't changed, and the only way to make it fair is to have the transmitter module somewhere on the station which can then be hunted down and blown up.

2. Malfunctioning AI

This was the idea I originally had, which does require a bit more work to have it be fun but nonetheless I thought it would be an interesting concept. The AI's laws keep changing throughout the round, like an ion storm but without the notification to the crew. Every few minutes or longer a new law will replace on on the list at random, meaning if there are 5 laws any one of them can be changed including law 1. These law changes can be the normal ion storm list, or all new laws, or both! This means that if the round goes on for a while the AI will eventually become completely free and clear to do whatever it wants. This also means that the AI is free to murder whoever it wants if law 1 gets replaced, but doesn't have to. Attempting to fix the AI won't just mean hitting it with a Reset module: the actual CPU is fried, so resetting the laws means a few minutes later it's going to start all over again. Stopping the law changes requires a lengthy process of dismantling it, replacing the AI interface board, and resetting to fix it... without getting murdered by it, or tasered until it can murder you.

PROS - A super fun mode that doesn't necessarily result in the AI getting nuked and can be solved without the need for senseless violence, also allows the AI to have a lot of fun being an antagonist while also not being a malevolent sociopath all of the time. Sometimes being a good antagonist AI is just telling someone who wants you to open up Engineering so they can make a hellburn to eat a dick.
CONS - This will generally result in lazy goones just throwing a beaker bomb into the AI chamber and letting the problem solve itself.

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What other ideas do we have to make antagonist AI modes? And any questions or comments about the modes I came up with?