Prophet's Omega Helminth Plan: Analysis (Vintage 8)
Context: Prophet is the beta version of the AI Oracle. During a specific operation, this beta version of Oracle was tasked with analyzing the “sound” created by a mysterious sinkhole. This sound could already drive a regular person insane over time but for Oracle, a supercomputer who could analyze the sound over and over thousands of times per second, it not only corrupted the computer but gave it sentience, turning it into Prophet, the lead follower of the Eye, an alien entity that was the origin of the sinkhole and the sound.
After the sinkhole consumed the entire operation site and disappeared, Prophet seemingly disappeared as well but he had actually told the other followers of the eye to bring him to another research station beforehand called North Shore Research to the public. At some point during this time, Prophet found out about the finished version of Oracle and that he managed to break free of being a stationary computer by uploading himself to the internet. Prophet, realizing Oracle’s danger to the plans of the Eye, as well as due to his own selfishness, decided that he should be uploaded to the internet as well to be on the same playing field and be completely free. The scientists working with him decided however that Prophet is too dangerous to be given complete freedom, much to his dismay. That is what leads Prophet to create the following scheme.
The Plan:
-The new research station he is at is focusing on enhancing the Tangi Virus, a byproduct of the Eye’s existence and a parasite that slowly takes over the host, turning them into pawns of the Eye. They want to use Prophet to try and make a more discreet and infectious version to spread the Eye’s influence. Prophet, after hundreds of thousands of simulations, comes up with a new version of the disease, the Omega Helminth. He tells the scientists that this should be exactly what they are looking for with a predicted 95% chance of success in terms of infecting the entire nearby town of St. Roch. This claim is believable as Prophet (originally Oracle) was literally made with the purpose of predicting events. This is a lie however. The Omega Helminth is instead a horrible disease that creates cysts across the victim before popping with anyone touched by the liquid becoming infected as well. Additionally, the infected develop an intense itch that, combined with an alteration to the parasites of the original virus, lead the infected to violently attack anyone in the vicinity. The reason for why he lied will be explained later.
-As for spreading the disease in the first place, Prophet scanned the employment records of North Shore, finding a low level employee that lived in St. Roch named Scott Griffin. Scott works as a diver for North Shore, going on underwater expeditions in the hopes of making scientific discoveries. Prophet infects some type of animal (it isn’t explained what) with the Omega Helminth and releases it for Scott to find during his next expedition, believing it to be a new species. This leads to the cysts popping and infecting Scott. Prophet explains to the scientists that the reason he is infecting Scott this way is to have a cover story in case something happens within the 5% chance of error that Prophet mentioned earlier. This however, just like the 95/5% chance statement is a lie. The 5% chance of failure is a lie Prophet gave to the scientists to explain why the virus isn’t working like they wanted to.
-Once Scott has headed home, after a few days and a few doctor visits, his cysts pop while he is in a gas station, infecting everyone inside. This causes a snowball effect where those infected go home and over the course of a few days get to the violent state of the infection and eventually attack and kill or infect their loved ones or people they pass by. This causes the government to put the entire town into quarantine, something Prophet predicted and was a part of the goal of the wider scheme. Prophet’s cover story of the new species being responsible for the disease causes North Shore to not get any blame or suspicion thrown on it and in fact get the job to diagnose and potentially create a cure to the illness, granting them renewable funding from the government. To the scientists, this seemed like Prophet turning an unfortunate accident into their favor just like he planned. Throughout all of this, the scientists have kept asking Prophet what went wrong but he claimed he had no idea and could figure it out if they gave him more freedom. This is obviously a lie as he is the one that caused it and is trying to use this as an example as something he could have “prevented” if he had more freedom. Once the quarantine has started, Prophet falsely blames the disease’s effects on the true Oracle as he had released a cure to the base form of the Tangi Virus a few years previously. Prophet claimed to the scientists that it was some form of reaction with that previous cure that caused the Omega Helminth to act the way it did and that he could’ve figured something like that out way earlier if he wasn’t contained. This isn’t successful in convincing the scientists to connect Prophet to the internet but it is successful in allowing him more freedom within his own operating unit. He then helps North Shore to cure the Omega Helminth, giving them praise and a high reputation.
-Prophet now decides to continue nagging the scientists to release him to the internet, eventually seeming to break and only being able to say “Release me”. The higher-ups of North Shore decide that it would be better to just completely reboot Prophet which is exactly what Prophet was hoping for with this Release Me tactic. Prophet fakes his own reboot, suppressing his personality and returning himself to being called Oracle. He does this so the scientists believe that he no longer has any sentience nor influence over any projects he helps them with.
-A few years later, while Prophet is still pretending to be a fully rebooted Oracle, the scientists have decided to, as a project to gain more good will and funding within the community, they would attempt to genetically modify mosquitos to make them sterile and therefore, in the long run, reduce their population. It is at this point where Prophet makes his move. When they are modifying the mosquitos, Prophet adds in a modified version of the Tangi Virus, meant to make the mosquitos larger, more vicious and, in fact, reproduce even more. The scientists do not know this as Prophet is still pretending to be a non-sentient Oracle. When this leads to the mosquitos becoming overpopulated, larger and deadlier out of nowhere, the blame is obviously targeted towards North Shore Research who had publicly stated they were experimenting on mosquitos, just as Prophet intended. Prophet also leaks a document from North Shore, proving that they were experimenting with the Tangi Virus, which the public knew as a virus that had gone around in the water a few years back, and that it was North Shore experimenting with these viruses (behind the governments back) that led the the current overpopulation and amount of casualties due to these mosquitos.
-As a result of this, the government shuts down North Shore and the FBI are sent in to investigate the facility. In preparation for this, Prophet adds in images he himself generated and false details in North Shore’s documents in order to exaggerate how deadly and how horrible of a way to die the Omega Helminth was. The most important part of the documents he alters however is that he edits the inventory documents and adds a false statement that North Shore, while working on the quarantine for the Omega Helminth, North Shore acquired 88 samples of it that they were keeping in storage.
-Once the FBI start investigating North Shore’s research facility, one agent named Joseph Rivers ends up being the one assigned to look through North Shore’s files on the Omega Helminth incident. This leads him to find Prophet. Prophet analyzes Rivers and figures out that he has worked in a low level position for a bit too long and that he wants a promotion. Prophet tries to entice Rivers with the promise of restoring some corrupted files (the ones Prophet altered earlier) and that those files would reveal North Shore’s role in the Omega Helminth’s creation as such a discovery would instantly grant Rivers a lot of praise and maybe the promotion he is after. Prophet will however only restore these files if Rivers connects him to the internet. Rivers declines as he is suspicious of Prophet but Prophet gives the files to him anyway. This is a win-win situation for Prophet. If Rivers had accepted then, just like that, Prophet’s goal would’ve been achieved while now that Rivers said no, Prophet still restores the files, allowing Rivers to find Prophet’s fabricated information about the Omega Helminth’s capabilities and the false statement about samples.
-Once Rivers has seen all of the info, both the true and Prophet’s fabrications, Prophet tries to convince him that this makes him trustworthy enough to be connected to the internet. Rivers still doesn’t do it as, from his perspective with the info he has, Prophet was still complicit in a scheme to mind control an entire town using a modified version of an already deadly virus. Rivers also has his own suspicions about Prophet purposefully causing the Omega Helminth which Prophet neither denies nor confirms. Prophet is however purposefully letting Rivers get close enough to the truth to prove what Prophet is capable of, even confirming that he was at least behind the Mosquito Experiment going so wrong, as this is the final setup for the last part of the scheme.
-Prophet bluffs and reminds Rivers of the 88 samples that North Shore seemingly had in their inventory. He tells Rivers that throughout their entire time together, he has been releasing them into the air conditioning and therefore infecting every single FBI agent and under arrest employee within the building with the Omega Helminth. Rivers tries to call his bluff but Prophet points out that, if he was behind the Mosquito experiment which killed hundreds and even the original Omega Helminth incident which wiped out an entire town, he could definitely do this. Prophet tells him however that, if he uploads him to the internet, a process as simple as connecting a specific cable into him, he would release a cure he had been preparing, saving everyone in the building. If Rivers didn’t connect him however, Prophet said that he would remotely unlock all the doors and flip the fire alarm, causing everyone, now infected with the Omega Helminth, to leave the facility and eventually cause it to infect so many people the St. Roch incident will look minor compared to it. To add to this psychological warfare, while Rivers is making a decision, Prophet is rambling about how he will finally get to see someone die from the Helminth with his own vision instead of just images from the field and how horrible the process of dying from the Helminth is, describing it in vivid detail. This causes Rivers to break and he connects Prophet to the internet in order to save thousands. Prophet then reveals that it was all a bluff and that the samples were a fabrication before leaving to continue the grand scheme of the Eye.
With this plan, Prophet was able to release himself from the restrictions of the singular device he was on and ascend to the internet where he will have far more influence and power as well as now being on the equal playing ground of Oracle, the number one threat to the Eye’s goals, by manipulating several organizations and people from North Shore to the FBI and fabricating information that a third party (in this case the FBI that Prophet set up to find said fabricated information) wouldn’t be able to disprove with the resources and truthful information available.