Quidnac DNA

A few months after the end of the Great War, rumours began to surface of “Rogues” – robots, computers and other mecha which had strayed beyond their original programming and begun to behave in erratic, and often dangerous, new ways.

These Rogues were commonplace machines that became infected with the Quidnac virus – a virulent strain of what had originally been a benign R&D exercise into improved Artificial Intelligence.

Quidnac research was intended to culminate with an extended type of ‘electronic DNA’. This ingenious blueprint would bring lifelike capabilities to otherwise dumb and soulless machines. The virus could reproduce and migrate to a fresh host within seconds and with incredible affect, a simple machine would ‘inherit’ the core experience and ‘knowledge’ of all other machines carrying the manufactured DNA.

The paradigm was so successful that within a few years, almost all automata, robots, computers and calculating machines were designed around the “QDNA” as it was then known.

After a few generations of development, most machines created for the general population had been designed without the slightest human input. These devices were so successful, reliable and ubiquitous that it was deemed unnatural NOT to rely upon them.

Shortly after the first Rogues were reported, the insane philosopher Aaroli Criestly (author of the Didache Nub Automaton) announced that he had successfully corrupted the QDNA, with the intention of “thinning the herd”; a disturbing aphorism he used for culling 90% of all living homo-sapiens (resurrected human/machine hybrids were considered only “half-flesh” and therefore under no threat). The demise of mankind would provide room for the emergence of AS, or Artificial Sentience, Criestly’s predicted evolutionary leap that all machines would eventually perform.

In an attempt to combat the rising tide of Rogue machines, many brave and unique individuals stepped up to the challenge. Large rewards were offered to anyone who could thwart a Rogue threat, and so the Rogue Hunter was born. Using themselves as bait, they would actively seek out Rogues and engage them in the attempt to disable the QDNA and effect a repair, or, failing that, destroy the offending control circuitry.

Criestly was later to embrace the Rogue Hunter initiative after his…

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Rogue QDNA Hunter

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