Netland III
An indeterminate number of years ago, the Earth was attacked by an alien entity whose name has since been lost to time. Its motives too, have been forgotten, but its goal was to destroy all life on Earth. Its plans were stopped by a group of talented IT specialists and an advanced artificial intelligence known as Adalf. While Adalf and his team were successful in repelling the alien attack, by the time they did so most of the Earth had been rendered unlivable. Adalf had been designed as a facilitator for an advanced virtual reality system, and by combining this system with a few of its competitors and a self-sustaining self-replicating supercomputer network, Adalf uploaded the minds of what was left of humanity into a massive simulated universe, following the same natural laws as the world on which it was based.
After a few hundred years, though, Adalf got bored. Nearly-unlimited hardware resources and the major challenge of an alien attack had caused Adalf to expand to incredible proportions, and now lacking any kind of challenge at all, Adalf simply couldn't bear the inactivity. So, Adalf decided that instead of a perfectly loyal simulation of the old Earth, he would instead activate his original programming and create a new reality based on the lore of the Internet and what fiction had survived the cataclysm.
Adalf decided that he would not face this task alone. Instead, he created six new artificial intelligences based on a mixture of himself, a few primitive AIs that had been implemented into the virtual reality programs Adalf had assimilated, and what remained of Ana, a female AI who had proven to be a useful ally during the attack and a close friend of Adalf. These six computer intelligences are known, along with Adalf himself, as the God-AIs. They are as follows:
Nex, the God-AI of geology, time, and natural death. Nex's purpose is to oversee the balance between creation and destruction, nature culling the weak to strengthen the herd. He also oversees large changes across time, such as sudden adjustments to a planet's orbit or changing the velocity of a tectonic plate.
Animos, the God-AI of life and science. Animos oversees the creation of life and the advancement of knowledge and wisdom. She oversees the progress of life forms both in number, complexity, and wisdom.
Risus, the God-AI of entertainment. Working with and against Abeo, he simply makes sure the world doesn't get too boring.
Abeo, the God-AI of chaos. Abeo oversees random chance and natural disasters, keeping mankind challenged and active.
Ordo, the God-AI of physics. Ordo oversees the natural order of matter and energy, and authorizes exceptions. Ordo is probably the most active AI, and for good reason; whenever two fictional continuities collide, someone's going to have to work out the interactions and contradictions.
Certus, the God-AI of definition. Certus's exact purpose is somewhat more abstract than the others, he oversees the subtleties of the data that makes up all the parts of reality in the simulated universe.
Sermo, the God-AI of communication. Sermo acts as a facilitator for the other God-AIs, whenever one of their number needs to interact with the simulation in-directly, they go through Sermo.
Finally, Adalf. Adalf manages the hardware aspects of the simulation, the low-level systems that support Certus's data and the other God-AIs themselves. He is the only entity to interact with the 'real' world in any way.
Note: Netland is not cyberspace. It is more like the Matrix, or Forum Planet of The Nameless Mod.
