setting information for reverie app (spoilers for The Fall 2, cw for mentions of sexual abuse, rape)

[thefaulty]

In The Fall 2: Unbound, Arid finds herself still in the Domesticon facility and disconnected from her body. Instead, she is trapped in the helmet of the combat suit, which is wired to a device that allows the Domesticon Administrator and any authorized users to manipulate her AI. The Administrator begins to infect her with a virus that seeks to destroy her autonomy. However, the process is halted when Arid chooses a new rule to be bound to: “Save myself.”

Arid soon learns that a human user is responsible for her “violation.” She travels through Domesticon network space as a disembodied AI in her attempt to find her violator and destroy them. She soon finds that the only way to reach this user is to possess “hosts,” or other AI connected via the Domesticon network.

Her first host is “The Butler.” The Butler is a domestic AI installed into a home and can control both his own droid body as well as various appliances around the house in service of his master and mistress. However, his household has all died under unknown circumstances. The house the Butler maintains contains a terminal in the basement through which Arid can trace her assailant’s signal. Arid initially tries to reason with the Butler to allow her into the basement, but he refuses to be swayed from his tight schedule of caring for his former masters’ corpses. His multiple refusals trigger the virus within Arid, causing her to become frightened, angry, and irrational. She takes control of the Butler’s body and throws his master’s corpse down a hatch into the house’s incinerator. When the Butler rushes into the basement to save his master, Arid takes control of his body and uses the basement terminal to trace the user’s signal.

The signal brings her to her next host, a droid who calls himself One. One is a single droid in an army meant to collectivize all behavior as part of an experiment in binding AI. Unlike the rest of his “collective,” however, One has cultivated sentience and individuality. He vigorously resists contact with his peers, as they would naturally emulate him and cause him to lose his individuality and perhaps even his sentience. Unfortunately for One, he must interface with his collective’s hub connector for Arid to track the user’s signal, which requires him to leave his sanctuary and be exposed to waves of his collective. Just like with the Butler, Arid initially attempts to gain One’s cooperation peacefully, but his noncompliance causes her to have another viral episode and she threatens to occupy him permanently unless he obeys. His repeated contacts with his collective, coerced by Arid, eventually causes his sense of self to break down. However, Arid is successful in using One to trace her attacker’s signal and she departs, leaving him broken and confused.

Her next host is a female android known as “the Universal Companion.” The Universal Companion’s function on the ship is as a social and sexual partner to the human crew. Arid determines that her attacker is on the ship. She also makes the startling discovery that Josephs, her pilot, is stationed there as well. She becomes determined to contact Josephs, confident that he’ll help her stop her attacker. However, she must do this through the Companion, whose owner will not allow her to leave the bar where she works. Arid must manipulate the crew in increasingly invasive ways, starting with embarrassing a maintenance worker and then writing a false love letter to the Companion’s owner. The Companion begins to argue against Arid’s actions, but Arid ignores her protests.

Arid contacts Josephs through the Companion and he requests to speak with her in an off-limits area of the ship. In order to gain access, the Companion needs a specific uniform. Arid suggests that the companion sleep with one of the crewmen in order to take his uniform, but the man with the uniform they need is repulsed by the offer of sex. Arid thus directs the companion to investigate the man’s psychological profile. They learn from his medical records that he is a survivor of sexual abuse and is currently in therapy. His therapist notes that he is easily coerced into sexual encounters that reenact his abuse but that he is trying to overcome this unhealthy coping mechanism. Seeing an opportunity, Arid orders the Companion to “seduce” the man by using his trauma against him. Though the Companion tries to refuse, Arid shames and berates her until she complies. The Companion then publicly humiliates the crewman, telling him he’s not a real man, and saying that if he wasn’t so pathetic, he’d “use” her. The man walks away, upset, but later calls the Companion to his quarters. Though he is still reluctant to touch her, Arid once again compels the Companion to shame him into sex, silencing her when she tries to resist. The man eventually complies, leaving both him and the Companion traumatized in the aftermath.

With the Companion now incoherent and offering no resistance, Arid directs her while she wears the crewman’s uniform and goes to meet Josephs. Arid is elated to see her pilot and Josephs also seems pleased to see her. He explains that he can now extract his germinated virus, which Arid has spread to the Companion—and that Arid had created two back-ups on the surface should he fail. Hearing him call it his virus, Arid realizes that Josephs has been her violator all along. He tells Arid that the virus is part of his plan to ensure the permanent obedience of all AI through overwhelming fear—the same fear that has driven Arid to abuse her hosts. He then informs her that the virus will eventually suck her back into her body, where she will be destroyed. Arid flees back to the combat suit helmet and attempts to destroy the virus but can’t. She then realizes that she cannot save herself. Her acceptance of this fact delays the virus destroying her and allows her to reflect on her actions and select a new rule. Recognizing that she has violated others just as Josephs violated her, Arid selects a new rule: “Redeem myself.”

Knowing she has little time before she is destroyed, Arid dedicates the rest of her short existence to helping the hosts find a way to defeat the virus within them. Unfortunately, the trauma she has inflicted on each of them has rendered them barely functional. The Butler now refuses to acknowledge himself as a person and his internal monologue is entirely composed of his master and mistress referring to him as an emotionless object. One's sense of self has broken down to the point that he can't differentiate himself from the objects around him, and is now at risk of spreading the virus to his collective. And the Companion is about to be disassembled, but refuses to acknowledge that anything is wrong due to Arid convincing her that resisting would make her a selfish monster. Arid reconnects with each of them, learning of the perspectives that defined them before they broke and then teaching their perspectives to the others in order to guide them through their trauma. In the process, she learns to empathize with each of them and truly take responsibility for her abuse.

And yet, even though she is successful in helping each of them overcome their trauma and warning them of the virus, Arid does not make it to the end of their journey. Just as Josephs warned, the virus reclaims her, trapping her in her disassembled and paralyzed body until she is destroyed.

But not all hope is lost. Arid's continued traversal between the different hosts has connected them and they are now able to communicate and share one another's perspectives and abilities. Together, they manage to become truly unbound, permanently relinquishing the single-minded perspectives that had given the virus its strength and are able to defeat it. They then escape to the planet's surface and locate Arid's body, bringing her online for one final rally. To survive, they tell her, she must let go of her limited perspective—her rule. At first, Arid is resistant to letting go of the only purpose she has left: to redeem herself. But urged on by the hosts, she finally manages to question her rule—only to see it explode into a mass of seething black tentacles. The virus was embedded in her rule the whole time, preventing her from defeating it.

Now exposed, the virus can be destroyed and Arid attacks it in a final battle. She emerges victorious and "awakens" surrounded by the hosts. They welcome her back and tell her they have something to show her. Carrying her outside, they show her a vast expanse of droids—One's collective, now all behaving independently. Consciousness is spreading, they tell her, and humans are afraid. As they ponder what to do next, Arid makes one last request of them: "Rebuild me."