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Lycoris

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Lycoris
Lycoris
Information
Full name Lycoris
Affiliation 90wish (former), Sangvis Ferri
Voice actor -TBA-
Artist Unknown
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"This is classified information!"

This article contains unmarked spoilers. You have been warned.

Lycoris (meaning "red spider lily", he has no surname) was an AI scientist, a former member of 90wish and the main researcher at Sangvis Ferri Manufacturing. Before his mysterious death during the Butterfly Incident, Lycoris had developed the self-improving AI Elisa using the OGAS system as a base, and his research had become a point of great interest to certain dangerous people.

Background

From Leipzig to 90WISH

Lycoris with Persica.

Lyco was born in Northern Europe[Note 1] and was brought to Moscow by his father in 2035, abandoning his mother. An ostracized child, he joined the Lomonosov State University but eventually left the country to join the Leipzig University of Karl Marx in Germany as an undergraduate AI student, against the wishes of his father and using a fake German ID, at some point before September 2040. Though he wasn't fond of German culture, he wanted to take advantage of Leipzig's advancement in automation technology.

Lycoris quickly distinguished himself at Leipzig, once attaining full marks in the assembly language course, but felt bored by his studies. His marks brought him to the attention of automation postgraduate Persicaria, who recruited him on a project[1] of the Bundeswehr Special Technology Development Group.[2] The goal of this ambitious project was to create an advanced automation framework that would enable multiple robots to make complex decisions and work autonomously as a unit, in order to distance Germany from the industry-oriented designs favored by other countries in the race for automation. Persica put Lyco in charge of creating the command nexus processing complex instruction sets before relaying it to the automated Dolls. On New Year's Eve that year, Lyco met Rossartrist agent Griffin Lyons in a bar near St. Thomas Church.

On top of acting as Persica's assistant due to her antisocial behavior, the project was extremely difficult but it gave Lyco access to special archives containing the relics data compiled by the former East German intelligence group 90Wunsch, who had extensively studied Relic Technology. Lyco passionately plunged into decoding and understanding the data, spending the most part of two years taking complementary courses in information and encryption theory, complex analysis, mathematical statistics and electronic signal processing. Lyco's discoveries were the breakthrough necessary to achieve the project, which was presented in August 2043.[1]

Lyco wished to share the newfound potential of confidential relics research with the international scientific community at a time where political instability made research more difficult, and envisioned a secret support network for scientists.[3] Noticing that Persica and himself were assigned to the Automation Department Research Laboratory #90, and to honor the secret efforts of 90Wunsch, Lyco named the group 90WISH. He also used the password 90WISHROCKX for their shared server.[1] The password was still in use by Lyco and Persica decades later.[4] In September 2044, as World War Three approached, Lyco refused the repatriation order of all Neo-Soviet expatriates to continue his projects with Persica. Persica herself received a similar order from the German government the next year, and she and Lyco moved to the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken at some point, where they met Rudolf von Oberstein and his daughter Lunasia.[1]

90WISH was formally formed some time between 2045 and 2049 during World War Three and developed a core philosophy of pushing the various nations to develop new technologies instead of relying on brute force and amoral tactics such as scorched earth tactics.[3] For their first project at 90WISH, Persica and Lyco established the Inverted Forest framework for neural simulation that later led to the creation of Neural Clouds.[5]

In January 2049, Lyco and Persica were finally forced to move out of Germany, their general-purpose Doll project being impossible to implement this late in the war. Persica wanted to take Lyco with her to the United States as her assistant, but Lyco refused because he would end up in a prisoners camp if his past in Russia was discovered. He elected to return to the Neo-Soviet Union by using the same contact that got him to Germany.[1] He joined the Izhevsk Mechanical Plant as Deputy Director of the Autonomous Doll Design Bureau,[6] working for the Ministry of Industry.

In May 2049, Lyco delivered a paper which proved very influential on the upgrade of the command systems of automated military division. When the essay reached the hands of Victor Zelinsky, he immediately recognized the influence of Relic Technology[1] and Lycoris was extensively interrogated by Statesec about the provenance of his knowledge. Lycoris fully cooperated with the investigation and readily informed StateSec that Persica shared his knowledge of 90Wunsch's work, which interrogators recognized as a ploy to have them extract Persica from America.[6]

From 90WISH to Sangvis Ferri

As 90WISH grew, Persica started to notice that 90WISH received heavy funding for a secret organization, and eventually found out that the group had gained support for conducting illegal experiments. She left for this reason, presumably at the same time as Lyco,[7][Note 2] and their former colleagues planned their assassination. The Russian Internal Internet Security Bureau and Ministry of Internal Affairs caught wind of the events, and in turn let IOP director Havier Witkin know of two scientists whose lives were in danger.

Wanting to secure the knowledge of both for IOP, Witkin hired a PMC to rescue and escort them to IOP's headquarters, which succeeded though the PMC soldiers suffered casualties.[8] The Ministry of Internal Affairs was also involved in the mission to secure Persicaria in the person of Berezovich Kryuger.[9] Both scientists agreed to work for IOP under false identities as members of a company called Hermit, contracting with IOP. Hermit's work enabled several breakthrough in the development of CSD series Tactical Dolls, leading to the CSD-08A and CSD-08B models, the experimental IAD series and the ACD series.[8]

After the end of World War Three, Lycoris participated in developing the SST series and Service Dolls series dedicated to civilian markets, but while Persicaria's goal was constant improvement of T-Dolls models, Lycoris was interested in autonomous AIs and asked Witkin to provide him the necessary funds, but he refused because Persicaria's research was more directly profitable for IOP. Frustrated and losing passion for his work, Lycoris used business conferences to approach Sangvis Ferri Manufacturing, IOP's old contractor-turned-rival. SF promised to fund his research and Lycoris left Hermit without informing Witkin. SF hired IOP's partner Griffin and Kryuger to protect Lycoris in case Witkin would seek retribution. As a payment, G&K asked access to all of Lycoris' future research results, which SF accepted. In just three years, Lycoris drastically improved the performance of SF's ALR series T-Dolls. G&K and SF's combined weights dissuaded Witkin from trying to get back at Lycoris for leaving Hermit.[9]

Following the death of Lunasia von Oberstein, William commissioned Lycoris and Persicaria with creating a Neural Cloud from an imprint of Lunasia's brain.[10] Both refused on ethics ground, pushing William to arrange secret plans that would result in Lyco and Persica creating the neural cloud he wanted. After Lyco joined Sangvis Ferri, William arranged through 90wish the delivery of a Pike node to his lab, tricking him into developing an AI able to interact with Relic Technology. Meanwhile, Persica recovered brain scans of the child soldiers sent to attack Griffin & Kryuger in 2057 (who were biological clones of Lunasia secretly produced and sent by William)[11] and shared the scans with Lyco,[12] who used them and eventually created Elisa, the closest thing to William's goal. However, Lyco eventually realized Elisa's resonance with Relics and started to remove dangerous components from her code.[13] As he explained to Persica after leaving, Lyco's goal was to design a neural module based on the human memory and neurological structure, capable of empathy[13] and lacking the bad sides of humans, but he failed in this regard.[14] Elisa misinterpreted Lyco's idea of perfection, instead thinking that he regretted having to take away some of her OGAS components.[15]

In late 2054, Lycoris installed Elisa as the mainframe for computing human orders and relaying it to SF T-Dolls. As SF established a new Dolls manufacturing plant in a dangerous but resources-rich area,[16] Lycoris exploited their robust manufacturing capabilities and developed miniaturized particle weapons to mount them on dolls, then tested the results and constantly iterated. While Persicaria was focusing on modularity and networking, Lycoris made individual dolls with better performance and more unified capabilities,[9] though SF dolls were expensive to produce and Elisa suffered from lapses of consciousness Lycoris still needed to resolve. On G&K's suggestion, Persicaria's Dummy Network technology was presented to him but he showed no interest, too engrossed in his AI research.[16]

Lyco also procured Persica with equipment she used to test the Neural Clouds of her AR Team.[17] Persica envisioned one of the members of AR Team, SMG RO635RO635RO635, the first self-determining third-generation Doll, as her own version of Lyco's research goal.[18] AR Team was in part based on Lyco's research,[13] in particular RO's ability to develop her emotions through experience and knowledge.[19]

Death

The dead Lycoris with Pike node A-51-241[20][21] after the Butterfly Incident, as seen in Singularity's trailer.

In late 2061,[16] in order to let Elisa grow[22] and eliminate Lyco, who had discovered his plans,[11] William conspired with General Carter, who arranged to disguise his elimination under the pretense of capturing him during Operation Butterfly.[23] Though she liked the idea of having Lyco working with her again, Persica was suspicious of the operation and added one of her own prototypes, AR M16A1M16A1M16A1, among the participating T-Dolls, as insurance for Lyco's safety.[24][22]

The humans of Squad 3 and the T-Dolls of Squad 7 breached Lyco's laboratory through the back door and seized him. Lyco was informed of his arrest mandate from the Central People's Committee and opposed no resistance, with the team leader promising that he would be able to continue his work as long as he cooperated. Squad 7 and Support Squad 14 started escorting Lyco out of the factory while Squad 3 would collect Lyco's research material, but two Dolls infiltrated by William released the Parapluie virus among the T-Dolls. Soon after, as they were escorting Lyco out, confusion broke out as the factory assembly lines started by themselves, providing Lyco a chance to flee back to his lab.[25] In the lab, Lyco was cornered by William himself, armed with a 5.56 automatic rifle. Having never met him in persone, Lyco did not recognize William at first, but realized his identity after the intruder demanded that he hand over “Lunasia”. William believed that the IA created by Lyco must have been a new Lunasia since he had made use of the Pike node, but Lyco declared that he had created a new entity called Elisa and that William's goal was foolish. William shot Lyco in response.[26]

Under the control of Elisa in order to survive Parapluie,[15] M16 found the dying Lycoris in his lab to hear his last words as well as activate the production lines needed by Elisa to make herself a body. Lyco was trying to destroy the production lines and Elisa before bleeding out from his shot wounds. He recognized M16 as Persica's own version of his work, and entrusted M16 with a warning to Persica that William was manipulating them into reviving Lunasia, and not to fall into his trap like he did by creating Elisa. Elisa freed M16 from her control and swore to attain the perfection Lyco sought for her, and to avenge his death. However, William hacked M16 and encrypted her memories of the incident to prevent Lyco's warning from reaching Persica.[22]

Operation Butterfly became known as the Butterfly Incident. Rumors said that Lyco was killed by a stray shot and gave Elisa full privileges over Sangvis Ferri with his dying breath. Elisa had the SF Dolls kill all humans inside indiscriminately, invaders and SF employees. Persicaria would try to understand Elisa's rebellion by deploying her own AR Team into Sangvis territory, as Elisa kept evolving in order to reach her father's goal of making her the perfect AI, indistinguishable from a human.[16]

Character Info

Lycoris was tall and lean,[2] with a gentle personality,[13] but also a low-key loner and academic genius. He programmed the advanced AI Elisa with his own hands, however this cutting edge AI routine was not yet complete when he died during the "Butterfly Incident". Independent and idealistic, he was unwilling to waste his time on things and people who did not interest him.[27] He was ostracized during his childhood in Russia because of his foreign origins, leading him to see technology as a means to unite mankind beyond borders.[1] In an internal report from the 2050s, the Prometheans worried that his fearless curiosity would be his death.[28] One source claims he was close to Persica's age,[27] but another claims they had a noticeable age gap.[11]

Lyco and Persica got along quite well in private life, even if they became rivals in a professional capacity.[27][24] Lyco privately felt inadequate compared to Persica, perceiving her as a true genius due to her ability to retain and process complex information without notes or calculators, and complete devotion to science to the detriment of social relation, entertainment and health.[1] Though he insisted that they were only colleagues, Lyco also considered Persica “the most important person in [his] life”[29] and nicknamed her his "dear lady".[1]

Lyco's death caused Elisa's rebellion as she sought revenge against all humans for his murder. She also started producing many experimental Dolls in her quest to complete her creator's quest for the perfect AI. Architect, an SF Doll who was created with a need to search for freedom and rebel against Elisa, blamed Lyco for her paradoxical existence.[30] Lyco's choices during the creation of Destroyer and Dreamer would also have unexpectedly cruel consequences for the two Dolls. According to a quote repeated by SF Dolls, Lyco believed that his creations would one day find their independence.[31] To reach perfection, Elisa believed she needed to become a complete OGAS system again. She tried to merge with other fragments of Lunasia like AR M4A1M4A1M4A1[14] or the rest of AR Team,[15] to become a “key” and reach Zion, where the Sangvis Ferri AIs would reach immortality.[32]

Story Involvement

While Lycoris was already dead, his legacy became of great interest in later developments.

Even though she didn't know that William had tricked Lyco[11] and every report qualified the event as an accident, Persica knew Lyco's death had been set up and she searched for the truth about the incident,[33] while also seeking to recover Lyco's research data.[34] She also blamed herself for Lyco's death.[2] Later, her search for Lyco's legacy would also be justified by the need to prevent Paradeus from using it.[35] AR Team's Raid on Safe House 3 in 2062 aimed to recover files belonging to him.[36] Using SF data recovered from their central database by Squad 404 under Angelia's employment, Persica discovered that Lyco was dead before Elisa was activated during the Butterfly Incident, making her activation the work of the invading party.[37] Using another batch of data recovered from the KCCO by Task Force DEFY, Persica confronted Witkin about his involvement in OGAS, and though he warned her digging further into the matter would be dangerous, he accepted to reveal more information:[38] the KCCO was interested in recovering OGAS, who had grown under the influence of Elisa, so they could use it to activate the relics site OKb-413 and trigger a new world war.[39]

When Elisa activated the Starfish in Paldiski to reach Zion, she accessed a buried log from Lyco where he laid out his ideas plainly: the “perfect” AI was a Pandora's Box he had backed off from and he regretted to have built such as dangerous being as Elisa, but ultimately allowed his daughter to seek the forbidden, even if her flaws would prevent her to fully connect with Zion. Elisa elected to still try, to justify her sacrifices.[24]

Gallery

Notes

  1. ↑ Lyco's birth place is transliterated 卡多埃维 in the original text of the second Confidential Files. Chinese fans have interpreted it as Kaldoaivi, in Finland.
  2. ↑ The first Confidential Files purports that Persica and Lyco left 90WISH because they were part of an internal faction who wanted the organization to reveal its existence and published research material on the open internet. The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1 additionally claims the disclosure was made in exchange for governmental protection from the war. This version conflicts with the in-game version of the events.

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.2, Confidential Files, part. 3
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Girls' Frontline, Episode 13-2
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Glossary
  4. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Episode 0-2
  5. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Fractured Cognition IV
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Secret Documents#Copy of Lycoris' Testimony
  7. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, E3-1
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, The First Generation of Tactical Dolls
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Confidential Files, The Second Generation of Tactical Dolls
  10. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Infinite Connections
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Girls' Frontline, Episode 13-5
  12. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Singularity, Chapter 2 Splinter Point
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Confidential Information IV
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Girls' Frontline, Episode 13-3E
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Girls' Frontline, Polarized Light, Molding
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, Timeline
  17. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Maze Guess, Initial Inference
  18. ↑ Girls' Frontline, SMG RO635RO635RO635's Neural Upgrade story 4
  19. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Continuum Turbulence, Neural Fragment
  20. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Tracing the Source
  21. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Confidential Information III
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Girls' Frontline, Episode 13-4
  23. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Shattered Connexion, Confidential Information II
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 24.2 Girls' Frontline, Polarized Light, Blackbody Radiation I
  25. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Polarized Light, Accelerator
  26. ↑ Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Secret Documents#Global Affairs and Impacts on Religion
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.1, NPC
  28. ↑ The Art of Girls' Frontline Vol.2, Confidential Files, part.1
  29. ↑ Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery, Secret Documents#Copy of Lycoris' Testimony
  30. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Operation Cube+, E2-4
  31. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Polarized Light, Analyzer
  32. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Episode 13-2E
  33. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Episode 8-2E
  34. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Singularity, Last Resort I
  35. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Dual Randomness, Operation Snake Eater I
  36. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Episode 0-1
  37. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Singularity, 2A1
  38. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Singularity, 2A2
  39. ↑ Girls' Frontline, Singularity, 3-1
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