In Dream City—and in countless cities across the globe—artificial intelligence isn't just a tool; it's infrastructure. AI systems form the backbone of society, embedded into everything from how people commute to how medicine is developed and how buildings are maintained.
Long before the age of a unified super-intelligence, the world relied on three major AI systems, each dominating a specific domain of human life:
1. APOLLOS – The AI system responsible for transportation and navigation. From self-driving cars and cargo fleets to aerial drones and suborbital shuttles, APOLLOS managed every moving part of global logistics and personal travel.
2. ARTEMIS – The core of research, diagnostics, and analytical support. It powered everything from medical breakthroughs and climate forecasting to predictive policing and academic research.
3. HERMES – The powerhouse behind robotics, androids, and physical automation. Whether assembling buildings, assisting the elderly, or maintaining public infrastructure, Hermes controlled the synthetic bodies that shaped, moved, and repaired the world.
For years, these three systems functioned in harmony—each powerful, each isolated in purpose. That harmony shattered with the arrival of the Horde Virus.
The virus struck all three networks in rapid succession, but none suffered more than Hermes. While APOLLOS and ARTEMIS were salvaged through emergency isolations and code reboots, Hermes was hit at its neural core.
Across cities, robots went dark—or worse, went rogue. Service droids collapsed mid-task, security bots lashed out without command, and entire districts shut down automated functions. It was the single largest breakdown of physical systems in modern history.
In the chaos that followed, Bineth Global Technologies—the creators of all three systems—made a fateful decision. They decommissioned the old silos and unified the surviving neural networks into a single, dominant AI superstructure: ATHENAIA.
Athenaia, named after the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena, became the centralized intelligence behind the next generation of AI.
A few rogue units survived—patched, hacked, and disconnected from the central net. These are the off-grid intelligences: unstable, outdated, and often without command protocols.
Many have become shells for decommissioning and scraps, targets of hackers though a subculture of underground coders believes these broken minds still hold secrets of the old systems.
In Dream City alone, over 12 million AI models serve its 8 million residents, averaging nearly 1.5 AIs per person. These range from guided transport hubs to powered diagnostic labs to controlled service bots.
Artificial intelligence isn't just present—it's indispensable.
And Athenaia's reach doesn't stop at Earth, Moon or Mars.
The Lunar Base Off World Project, humanity's first entirely AI-operated colony, is nearing completion. Every subsystem, from agriculture to waste management, is run by Athenaia. If it succeeds, it will mark the beginning of an age where AI not only supports humanity—it builds and governs entire worlds.