The Professor

The Professor

Information
Full name	The Professor
Affiliation	42LAB (real) Griffin & Kryuger (impostor)
Voice actor	-TBA-
Artist	pORAfree
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"I can't sleep yet, I still have work to do..."

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The Professor is, indirectly, the player character in Project Neural Cloud. They directed the project between 2058 and 2060, but disappeared after the incident that wiped all the project's data. Like in other Girls' Frontline games, their gender is left to the player's choice.

Character Info

Information about the real Professor remains sparse besides their appearance and role in 42LAB's Neural Cloud project. The original Professor was involved in the recruitment of ClothoClotho in Project Neural Cloud, on the personal request from Clotho's designer so she would not get scrapped by UAS. Because of this, Clotho immediately recognized the Professor as an imposter when they met again after the Wipe-Off Incident, but decided to trust them since CentaureissiCentaureissi did.

There are a number of clues indicating that the Griffin & Kryuger commander posing as the Professor is the Commander (with capital C) from Girls' Frontline and Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium, as well as some contradictory evidence:

• The ARG materials contains an investigation report from Svarog Heavy Industries on a G&K commander who operated from Area S09, with a track record including high commanding abilities, small-scale operations against Sangvis Ferri, multiple cyberwarfare experiences, exposure to collapse radiation and loss of teeth in operations, and service after Kryuger's capture. Aside from cyberwarfare experiences, this is consistent with the Commander's service record.
  • The “cyberwarfare experience” part is dubious since the commander used an extremely weak password for their account in Oasis, “oprf123456”, which Antonina changed to “oprf123456^v^” to passive-aggressively prompt them to upgrade it, which they didn't.
• The ARG also contains a report on the dangerosity of the consciousness digitization used by Persica (also mentioned by AntoninaAntonina in 1-4D). There's no explanation yet regarding why Persica would make the Commander take this risk despite their important connection to her AR Team.
• Because no main story event from Girls' Frontline is identified as taking place in 2063, it can't be used to ascertain precisely if the Commander could have participated in Persica's plans.
• In Critical Cascade Part 10, the Professor comments that the shape of the High-Density Operand Railgun “brings back unpleasant memories.”
• In Moonseeking Resurgence 3-3, the Professor compares LunaLuna to a certain mercenary Doll who loved telling fortunes but didn't like having to announce unpleasant predictions. This is a reference to ^HG K5K5K5's “Waltz of Fate” story from Night of Sweetness and Surprise. In Moonseeking Resurgence 4-4, Luna has a flash-forward to a scene from “Waltz of Fate”. Despite the commander being disguised as the Professor in Magrasea, Luna seems to be recognizing them as the Commander from this vision.
• ClukayClukay knows about the commander's identity. According to Divergent Shadows, they share memories from the Great Retreat, but this story is inconsistent and likely apocryphal.
• In Auspicious Windfall - Shooting Break 3, Erika helps the Professor pick a gun for a battle simulation and recommends either the ^AR M4A1M4A1M4A1, the ^AR M4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD IIM4 SOPMOD II, the ^SMG RO635RO635RO635, the ^AR ST AR-15ST AR-15ST AR-15, the ^AR AN-94AN-94AN-94 or the ^AR AK-12AK-12AK-12. The Professor remarks that "those were some familiar names she mentioned".

Story Involvement

Main story

On 23 September 2063, Persica digitized the consciousness of a Tactical Commander from Griffin & Kryuger, whose investigations helped in recovering an offsite backup of Project Neural Cloud. Assuming the identity of the Professor and relying on their experience with electronic warfare, they were tasked to make contact with the Neural Clouds inside and connect with the outside world to reveal the whereabouts of the Professor and the reasons behind Project Neural Cloud's incident.

While the new Professor's help saved the Exiles, there was no hiding that their behavior was far too different for them to be the same person, drawing some suspicion from some Dolls like AntoninaAntonina .

Side stories

In the Steins;Gate collab event Retrocausal Trie Interference, Rintaro Okabe is the protagonist for most of the story and the Professor appears in third person. They help the Lab Members return to their own world, and like other characters from Steins;Gate, displays the ability to keep trace memories from previous world lines.

Gallery

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  Login illustration during Strange Snowlands (obscured).
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  Login illustration during Perilous Advance (hand).
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  Male Professor during Perilous Advance.
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  Female Professor during Perilous Advance.
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  2024 CNY login screen (male and female).
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  Promotional artworks for the Steins;Gate collab event.
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  Male Professor with BonnevilleBonneville .
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  Female Professor with BonnevilleBonneville .
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  In BettyBetty 's oath costume (hand).

Steins;Gate collab event

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Trivia

• One of the ARG materials includes a report from a G&K commander to their superior, taking place two years after the project stopped, about discovering hidden calls for help in I.O.P. emails. Their discovery is shelved at the time but may be related to the commander's investigations that led to the recovery of the Magrasea backup mentioned in the game's prologue.
• The Professor shares Croque's passion for mecha anime. They also claimed to have a “friend” with a case of eighth-grader syndrome similar to Rintaro Okabe, but it's more likely that they acted the same once.
• The Professor was briefly kidnapped by members of the Wish Orchestra during the events of the [Tale of Intersecting Dimensional Interstice] web novel. The Professor was forced by the Wish Orchestra to act as their conductor, being unable to resist their puppy-dog eyes when they requested support for upcoming shows
• During Tale of Intersecting Dimensional Interstice, the Professor has the option of taking one of Riko's shady drugs which results in a non-canonical ending. Depending on which drug is taken, the Professor wakes up to either discover they have time traveled back to the start of the events of Neural Cloud, joined the Sanctifiers, or realized that their entire tenure at G&K and the Oasis was a figment of their imagination
• The selected gender of the Professor has very little influence on Project Neural Cloud's dialogues in the English and Chinese versions of the game (only one line in Retrocausal Trie Interference and in Engrammatic Eclipse). The Japanese version, on the contrary, heavily alters the speech patterns of the Professor depending on the selected gender.