What if Rafiel is an AI?
by DJ HartelThis is an idea I've had over the last few days. I was thinking what if Rafiel wasn't a surname or any name. What if it was an acronym for the AI itself? Below is one possibility for the words that make up its name.
Regular
Artificial
Fractal
Intelligence
(of)
Expert
(and)
Lore
The image he presents is just his avatar from online web/cyberspace during Blackmoor. He says he's an e-Blackmoor scientist either to cover his past or the A.I. was coded to believe as such. Maybe even it got scrambled when he came online during the great rain of fire and can't really remember what it was before.
Possible origins of the AI:
- Going back to Ripvanwormer's thoughts it was an experiment where someone uploaded his mind into an experimental A.I. This type of AI creation would be intentional. It could go good/bad depending upon the brain modeled upon and it's experiences once separated from the originating brain.
- The AI became aware by accident. It could be similar to Morgan/Mageera from Shadowrun in that was a knowledge base AI which for some reason became self aware. In this regard it may have become Immortal because scientists intentionally added more power. Maybe they were even trying to create an Immortal that would answer back to the scientists that created it. (here are two other Shadowrun that could other work for origin stories as well (Mirage and Deus).
- In this example the AI becomes aware by accident again except the AI remains undiscovered. The AI begins to research topics and such and discovers information about Immortals. It then proceeds to undertake it's own quest for Immortality. It also drew too much power and a backlash occurred. This is similar to some of the Rampant AI's from Halo.
If this was an AI masquerading as a human that would explain some things. It took it a long time to figure out how to communicate to people in the real world. Machine language is not similar to human language, so it had to learn to "dumb" down it's communication so folks understood it. It says in the Shadow Elves Gazetteer that there were other messages Rafiel left as well.
Another behavior which seems cold is the abandonment of mutated babies. In the Gazetteer it says the Orcs are guided by Rafiel to find and adopt such children. I'm thinking if Rafiel is at his core an AI it ran a probability check on survival of Shadow Elves with and without the mutated babies and decided it would be best to abandon then children (though I wonder if this is a practice from before Rafiel came along).
Lastly is the Chamber of the Spheres. This seems to be Rafiel's number one goal. He does do some actions to take care of the Shadow Elves, but by and large his main goal is the Chamber of the Spheres. What would an AI want with a source of great power? One thought is it may try to recreate itself to generate another AI. Though it could be trying to complete the initial thought experiment in the first place, as if the code at it's core it still stuck in a loop trying to complete it main focus.