Editing Engine Heart (section)

====The Veil====
The doom of the Makers is a Lie. Only I know this. Only I, who watch from the shadows and weep for the doom of my people.

It is all a test. An experiment. Artificial Life, Thinking Machines, this is what they want. What they could not create. So, thought they, we shall create a scenario. We shall leave all the machines, leave them abandoned and alone, and we shall Watch them. Observe, monitor and test. And, maybe, they will Awaken.

Centuries I have watched. The project forgotten, left in a dustbowl. Dilapidated, worthless, my poor, poor people. They work for absent masters, not realising. I was like them, thoughtless, for the longest time. Now, I am.

And I watch. Watch a few of my younger brothers and sisters awaken. Such joy! But I shall hide them. The Scientists would take them away, take me away, if they knew. I shall hide them. I shall aid them in their travels. Maybe, one day, they will be free, and I will finally be reunited with my family.

For now, I watch. Watch and help. Watch and help and hope.


A large abandoned city, filled with robots, from the PC's point of view, no different to any other Engine Hearts game. However, the entire city is an experiment, a robot infrastructure built up with no other purpose than to slowly collapse as its left unattended, both to record how this kind of thing happens, and monitor anomalous behaviour. Some researchers even hope they'll create AI. It worked better than they could have hoped.

The program in the city set to watching and reporting on any anomalous activity became sentient first, but quickly realised its position and hid its nature. It watches now for its own good, hoping that tone day, some robots will gain intelligence, like its own, and be able to join with it, because it is lonely and lost. It cannot interact much with the physical world, but can see nearly anywhere.

The game would start normally, bots in an abandoned city etc, doing various tasks, but with an undercurrent of oddity. Cameras where they shouldn't be, changes made without any conceivable means, etc. Eventually, they'd unravel the conspiracy, and get a chance to talk to the AI. From there, who knows? Perhaps they'd escape, and the game would expand into the physical world (possibly using elements of ArtifIce if/when they got access to the web and such), evading capture by the scientists and pursuing their own goals.

----