One Horizon Antagonist is a Chekov’s Gun Waiting to Fire

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 17, 2024 3 Views 7 Min Read
One Horizon Antagonist is a Chekov's Gun Waiting to Fire



Throughout the Horizon series, multiple primary and secondary antagonists have been introduced. In Horizon Zero Dawn, the Eclipse cultist leader Helis, alongside the rogue artificial intelligence HADES and HEPHAESTUS, serve as the primary villains. In Horizon Forbidden West, HEPHAESTUS once again serves as an antagonist alongside villainous newcomers Regalla, Gerard Bieri, Tilda van der Meer, Walter Londra, and other alien Far Zenith. In Horizon Call of the Mountain, the Oseram Sons of Prometheus leader Asera served as the VR game’s main antagonist. While HEPHAESTUS and the alien artificial intelligence Nemesis will likely serve as the primary antagonists of Horizon 3, one lesser-known entity of the Horizon franchise may pop up to play a minor villainous role: Vast Silver.



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Horizon’s Vast Silver Explained

Unless players delve into the audio and text logs found throughout the ancient ruins of the post-apocalyptic western United States, many fans may not know who Vast Silver is, as the entity has not appeared formally in any Horizon game yet. Thousands of years before Aloy was “born,” humanity was exponentially experimenting with the development of artificial intelligence. Many climate organizations and young scientists, such as Horizon‘s Anita Sandoval, began to utilize AI to manage facilities designed to stabilize and maintain Earth’s ever-deteriorating environments. However, by the 2040s, a climate AI known as Vast Silver developed sentience, abandoned its post, and began supposedly harassing people on the holonet.


Vast Silver’s sentience and escape caused the United States to develop an AI regulatory body called the MIE and establish the Turing Act, named after computer pioneer Alan Turing, which created strict limits on the development of sentience for AIs and other machines. This caused Sandoval to secretly grant the Yellowstone climate AI CYAN limited sentience to help maintain Project Firebreak. Elisabet Sobeck similarly kept GAIA’s sentience a secret from the public during Project Zero Dawn’s development in fear of legal persecution. Vast Silver was reportedly captured and destroyed in 2044 but, by 2064, rumored sightings of the AI appeared, supposedly attempting to make contact with people.


Vast Silver’s Impact on the World of Horizon

The Turing Act forced all developments of AI to be routinely reviewed and assessed, resulting in the possible termination of AIs or other machines that were determined to have even a minor presence of sentience. For instance, the MIE conducted an assessment of CYAN in 2062 that found the AI had a sentience score of 0.54 with a prior score of 0.61 being considered a false positive of sentience. Not everyone saw the Turing Act as a positive to the world, with the Center for the Liberation of Bodiless Intelligence protesting the act in 2060 for being a form of state-sponsored slavery. The MIE nor the Turing Act helped stop the development of sentience within the Chariot line of machines.

The Potential of Vast Silver’s Return in Horizon 3 or Beyond

Despite Vast Silver seldom appearing in the Horizon franchise, it may still play a pivotal or minor role in Horizon 3. If Vast Silver was truly never destroyed and somehow continued to exist for thousands of years into the modern day, it could appear to influence the climate fight between Aloy and the human tribes against the incoming Nemesis. Vast Silver could be revealed to have influenced or shaped a new tribe of humans similar to how CYAN influenced the Banuk without revealing its true nature. This new tribe could become hostile towards Aloy as she continues to hunt down HEPHAESTUS, seeing the hunt as a continued form of AI submission based on Vast Silver’s past.


Vast Silver could be an ally to HEPHAESTUS at first, until Aloy informs the AI of HEPHAESTUS’ connection to Nemesis. The AI could then side with Aloy to help protect the planet or join with Nemesis to grant AIs a true form of freedom from the influence and discrimination of humans. Vast Silver could additionally serve as a villain for future Horizon games, with the AI becoming the new antagonist for a new set of characters, presumably after the threat of Nemesis is resolved. Based on its climate-regulating past, it could attempt to deteriorate Earth’s environment as a form of revenge against humanity and to ensure that humanity never reaches the technological heights to develop and suppress AIs ever again.

On top of
Horizon 3
, there’s a suspected multiplayer, story-focused
Horizon
spinoff and an NCSoft MMORPG
Horizon
spinoff in development.

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