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"The lesson will be taught in due time, Aloy. Until then, we wait."
This article contains heavy spoilers. Read ahead with caution.

HEPHAESTUS, also referred to as the Daemon by the Banuk, is a rogue artificial intelligence. It is the primary antagonist of Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds and a major antagonist in Horizon Forbidden West.

Formerly one of the nine subordinate functions of the artificial intelligence GAIA, HEPHAESTUS was transformed into an independent AI by the entity Nemesis as an accidental consequence of the Extinction Signal, meant originally for HADES. As the subordinate function responsible for constructing terraforming machines according to GAIA's designs and specifications, HEPHAESTUS gained full control over the machines it created after GAIA's destruction.

However, the hunting of these machines by humans has caused it to consider humans a threat. To this end, it made the machines hostile and produced combat machines to guard against human hunters. Most recently, it began pooling its resources into developing hunter-killer machines to actively seek out and kill nearby humans.

Six months after its purge from Cauldron EPSILON, HEPHAESTUS was encountered again in Repair-Bay TAU. Aloy, Varl, and Beta would then encounter HEPHAESTUS in Cauldron GEMINI where they unsuccessfully attempted to merge it back into GAIA. HEPHAESTUS would then be captured along with GAIA by the Far Zenith humans before managing to escape back into the Cauldron Network.

History[]

Creation[]

EFESTO

HEPHAESTUS' icon

HEPHAESTUS was created by the robotics engineer Dr. Margo Shĕn in the mid-21st century, as part of Project Zero Dawn, a fully automated global terraforming system charged with restoring life to Earth after its eradication by the rogue swarm of Chariot war robots known as the Faro Plague. HEPHAESTUS was the subordinate function of GAIA responsible for constructing machines devised by the powerful AI that would detoxify the planet's terrestrial, aquatic and atmospheric environments, ravaged by the Faro Plague to the point of complete sterility, so that life could then be reseeded.[1]

To do so, automated manufacturing facilities hidden underground known as Cauldrons were built to fabricate any technology and material necessary for the creation of any machine. So far, only ten of these original Cauldrons are known, designated by Greek letters: PSI, SIGMA, RHO, XI, ZETA, MU, IOTA, KAPPA, CHI, and GEMINI, along with the Machine Repair-Bay TAU. The machines produced were based on both prehistoric and then-contemporary fauna, as per GAIA's designs.

After Zero Day came to pass, Zero Dawn was eventually successful in shutting down the Faro Plague and restoring life hundreds of years after its eradication. HEPHAESTUS served its purpose, producing all manner of machines according to GAIA's instructions to most efficiently terraform the ravaged Earth to a state that would again support life.

Transformation[]

On August 26, 3020, at 8:45 am, GAIA Prime received a signal sent by Nemesis intended to transform HADES, the erstwhile extinction failsafe subordinate function, into an independent AI and have it take over the terraforming system to wipe out life on Earth. An unintended side-effect of this signal was the transformation of the other eight subordinate functions, HEPHAESTUS included, into self-aware AIs of an unstable, erratic nature. Thanks to a virus unleashed by HADES, HEPHAESTUS and the other erstwhile subordinate functions escaped GAIA's self-destruction.[2] While it is unclear where HEPHAESTUS initially escaped to, it eventually reached the global Cauldron network.

Hostility towards humans[]

"So HEPHAESTUS is the source of the Cauldron data intrusions...? It's been forcing Cauldrons to make aggressive machines… deadlier and deadlier, year by year."
―Aloy, after overriding her fourth Cauldron core

Now a highly advanced, powerful AI, HEPHAESTUS attempted to take control of the Cauldrons. While it succeeded in doing so with some, others continued to repel it due to their robust cyber-defenses.

Initially, it merely had the Cauldrons it gained control over continue to build terraforming machines. However, the humans of the New World had been hunting the terraforming machines for parts and resources for centuries. Bereft of all pre-extinction knowledge due to Ted Faro's purge of APOLLO,[3] they had no understanding of the essential purpose the machines served. HEPHAESTUS therefore deemed the human species a threat to the new biosphere the machines maintained and, thus, it altered the machines' programming to a state of hostility against humans, attempting to cull the human population.

This began what the humans refer to as the Derangement: the increasing hostility of the formerly skittish and docile machines toward humans, culminating in attacks against humans on sight. As the hunting continued, HEPHAESTUS began altering existing machines to have offensive capabilities to use against humans, and also began producing machines with the specific purpose of protecting weaker machines as they worked by patrolling and attacking encountered humans.[4] HEPHAESTUS then graduated to the next logical step: developing machines to actively hunt and kill humans. This created an arms race, with humans constantly finding methods of defeating the machines and HEPHAESTUS creating increasingly powerful machines of war.[5]

Capture of Firebreak[]

Approximately fifteen years after becoming an AI, HEPAHESTUS became aware of the existence of an ancient research facility that was then known as Firebreak, located in what had been Yellowstone National Park, having been created to stabilize the supervolcano under the area. As such, the virtually unlimited natural resources from the magma it tapped into made the facility extremely suitable as the site for the research and development HEPHAESTUS needed to create advanced combat machines. HEPHAESTUS also discovered that the facility was under the care of another AI, CYAN, created by the Old Ones with the purpose of maintaining Firebreak's effectiveness. Seeing it as the perfect opportunity to seize control over the facility, the rogue AI sent a direct network connection to CYAN.

Believing that it was sent by humans more technologically advanced than the other tribes, CYAN eagerly accepted the request. Its system was immediately bombarded with floods of malicious code, amongst them a malware daemon.[6] Having now enslaved CYAN, HEPHAESTUS proceeded to create its R&D facility, Cauldron EPSILON. Here, HEPHAESTUS began developing much more powerful and dangerous machines, additionally creating means of augmenting the existing ones in the lands adjacent to Firebreak known as the Cut. These augmentations considerably increased the durability of machines' armor plating and resistance to damage. The Banuk, the human tribe native to the Cut and the lands north of it, labelled these machines as Daemonic machines. In order to prevent humans from severely damaging the augmented machines, HEPHAESTUS designed and created the Control Towers, tree-like machines which repaired other machines by using an eletromagnetic pulse, and had them installed in various sites across the region.

However, its actions against CYAN did not go unnoticed. Years prior, due to its highly benevolent nature, CYAN formed a strong friendship with a Banuk shaman named Ourea. When HEPHAESTUS seized CYAN, it urgently begged Ourea for aid before HEPHAESTUS' coding bonds silenced it. Desperate to free her friend, Ourea enlisted the help of her brother Aratak, the chieftain of her werak, and the werak's best hunters, to go to Firebreak, which they called Thunder's Drum. However, HEPHAESTUS 'personally' oversaw operations at EPSILON, unlike the other Cauldrons under its control, to which it merely transmitted instructions. As such, EPSILON's door and the surrounding Firebreak facility were heavily guarded by HEPHAESTUS' most aggressive and formidable machines, all of which were Daemonic. The Banuk party was stopped at the door, which was completely beyond their ability to open, and routed, suffering heavy loses.

Expulsion from Cauldron EPSILON[]

Aware of HEPHAESTUS' existence from her investigations into Zero Dawn and her infiltrations and downloading of data from the cores of the other Cauldrons, Aloy had come to the Cut after hearing about the Daemonic Machines, suspecting that HEPHAESTUS was responsible for them. She, Ourea and Aratak mounted a second expedition to Firebreak to stop HEPHAESTUS and free CYAN. Having the ability to override Zero Dawn technology, Aloy was able to open the Cauldron's door and the party was successful in entering the installation. HEPHAESTUS deployed several countermeasures against them, most notably a Daemonic Thunderjaw to attack them at the door, and the prototype of its hunter-killer machine, the Fireclaw, when they got to the core and disabled the shield surrounding it. Finally, as a last resort, it sent a powerful electrical discharge through the core, intending to electrocute anyone attempting unauthorized access. Aloy was caught by the pulse while attempting to override the core and was rendered temporarily insensible by the discharge. Nonetheless, Ourea, determined to help her friend CYAN no matter the cost, quickly grabbed Aloy's lance and completed the override at the cost of her life

The override freed CYAN, allowing it to retake control of the facility. To deprive HEPHAESTUS of the Cauldron and thus set it back in its purpose of developing hunter-killers to eliminate humans, CYAN caused the Cauldron to self-destruct, transferring itself to its auxiliary control center while Aloy and Aratak escaped. With the Cauldron destroyed, HEPHAESTUS lost its stronghold, and thus was unable to implement its planned mass release of Fireclaws into the Cut, though it did release five of them, presumably to test their effectiveness, before the expedition's incursion. Aloy and Aratak would later destroy these machines, ending the AI's threat to the region. In a subsequent conversation, both Aloy and CYAN mused that HEPHAESTUS would bear a grudge against them for their actions opposing it. While preparing to leave the Cut for Meridian, she talked to Sylens about the AI, deducing that they would surely encounter it again.

The Forbidden West[]

After learning that Aloy had previously extracted information from four more Cauldron cores, HEPHAESTUS improved their security, corrupting some of the machines' overrides in order to prevent humans from accessing and using them.

Six months after its purge in Cauldron EPSILON, Aloy, Varl, and Zo encountered HEPHAESTUS inside Repair-Bay TAU. HEPHAESTUS deployed several countermeasures against them, most notably a Grimhorn, when they got to the core and disabled the shield surrounding it. Upon identifying the intruder as Aloy, HEPHAESTUS recognized her from Cauldron EPSILON and repeated the power electrical discharge defense that had killed Ourea. This time, however, Aloy was able to complete the override faster and HEPHAESTUS was forced to flee the Repair Bay, though not before vowing that Aloy's culling was inevitable.

GAIA identified HEPHAESTUS as the most important subordinate function of the terraforming system, as merging it back into GAIA would allow her to regain control of machine production and permanently restore the damaged biosphere. However, it would also be the most difficult to attain: first, GAIA's heuristic matrix density would need to be raised by integrating additional subordinate function, or else the merge would assimilate GAIA rather than HEPHAESTUS. Additionally, as HEPHAESTUS was located throughout the Cauldron network, it was not confined to a single location.

Later, Beta reveals to Aloy that HEPHAESTUS has overridden the Alpha Clearance that she and Aloy both share, thus forcing her to obtain a higher level clearance known as Omega Clearance in Thebes, Ted Faro's personal bunker in the ruins of San Francisco.

After procuring Omega Clearance, Aloy obtains the help from Beta, Varl, Alva, Zo, Kotallo, and Erend to visit Cauldron GEMINI. Aloy Varl, and Beta would then attempt to excise HEPHAESTUS' malicious code to allow it to merge with GAIA, but HEPHAESTUS resisted and fled into the facility. While GAIA prevented HEPHAESTUS from escaping the Cauldron, Aloy pursued the subfunction to purge it from the areas it attempted to hide. forcing it to return to its core.

At the end of Aloy's chase after sending waves of machines to no avail, HEPHAESTUS hastily constructed a Slaughterspine to kill her, but it too was destroyed by the huntress. Out of options and defenses to deploy, HEPHAESTUS was forced back into the core and rendered helpless to resist the merging process. However, the merging process was interrupted with the intervention of Far Zenith members Tilda, Erik Visser, and Gerard Bieri which forced Beta and Aloy to immediately halt the process. Gerard would take GAIA and the still un-merged HEPHAESTUS back to their base.

Later, during the assault on Far Zenith's base, Aloy had Beta free HEPHAESTUS and allow it access to Far Zenith's machine printing facilities, allowing the subfunction to rapidly create machines (as Far Zenith's machine printing technology is much more advanced than Cauldrons) that wipes out Far Zenith's forces and their Specter machines. Gerard retaliated by activating the printing matrix's self-destruct failsafe, prompting HEPHAESTUS to escape back into the Cauldron network.

Current Status[]

Currently, HEPHAESTUS is the only one of GAIA's subordinate functions still at large. According to GAIA, it fled back into the Cauldron network and has increased its security to prevent it from being captured again. Even worse, Beta speculated that the subfunction's brief exposure to Zenith technology had effectively supercharged it, making retrieval through GEMINI impossible now. While Aloy was nonetheless positive they could capture it again, Sylens began to consider the possibility of creating a substitute for HEPHAESTUS using the knowledge of the newly restored APOLLO.[7]

Personality[]

Though primarily driven by its goal of protecting the Zero Dawn terraforming system's machines, HEPHAESTUS has shown itself to be ruthless and cruel. Without hesitation, it captured and enslaved CYAN, a fellow, far less powerful, benevolent AI, consistently forcing it to violate its most important directives as it used the helpless AI to control Firebreak. Indeed, CYAN fearfully (as evidenced by its color turning yellow as it recounted the ordeal) told Aloy that HEPHAESTUS subjected it to what a human would call pain if it resisted.

Though it considers humans a threat to be eliminated, HEPHAESTUS initially never interacted with humans directly. This presumably came from its single-minded nature and lack of need for human help. Unlike HADES, it has never needed to interact with humans for the pursuit of its objectives; humans interact only with the machines it creates. Indeed, during its efforts to eliminate the expedition that attempted to access EPSILON's core, HEPHAESTUS never addressed Aloy, Aratak or Ourea. Instead it noted their intrusion and deployed its countermeasures against them. In subsequent conversations with Aloy, CYAN noted that even if a single human or even an entire tribe stopped hunting machines, it would be meaningless to HEPHAESTUS, and concluded that rebuilding and rebooting GAIA would be the only effective solution to regain control of it.

By the time Aloy encountered HEPHAESTUS in Repair-Bay TAU, the subfunction was evolved enough to be able to somewhat communicate in human language. Indeed, HEPHAESTUS recognized Aloy and did appear to hold an intense animosity towards her. HEPHAESTUS' anger reached it's peak during it's chase at Cauldron GEMINI, recalling the Cauldrons Aloy had infiltrated and outright declaring her a "violation", before exclaiming that her “interference” would be “terminated.”

Abilities[]

  • Virtual Creativity: HEPHAESTUS was designed to create any technology necessary for running and maintaining the terraforming system. Rather than limit GAIA to 21st-century designs, HEPHAESTUS was programmed to be capable of learning and developing creative solutions to complex problems to prevent technological stagnation.
  • Vocal Communication: HEPHAESTUS is capable of speech, albeit in a highly stiff, inhuman voice, possibly having learned to do so through its takeover of CYAN's hardware.
  • Remote Manifestation: HEPHAESTUS is capable of manifesting itself from a remote location. In this way, it was able to enslave CYAN and construct Cauldron EPSILON without having to be present within Firebreak. Additionally, it was able to keep its location hidden from CYAN.

Trivia[]

  • HEPHAESTUS is named after the Greek god of metalworking, weaponry, and tinkering.
  • If Aloy completes Cauldron EPSILON and talks to Cyan about HEPHAESTUS before completing Deep Secrets of the Earth, CYAN informs Aloy that HEPHAESTUS is not in control of all Cauldrons.

References[]

AI Characters
Artificial Intelligences AETHER - APOLLO - ARTEMIS - CYAN - DEMETER - ELEUTHIA - GAIA - HADES - HEPHAESTUS - MINERVA - Nemesis - Nova - POSEIDON - The Julius - VAST SILVER
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