Olivia Pierce I
UAC REPORT FILE BY2KG30Q
Olivia Pierce is the Head of Biochemical research at the Argent Facility. Educated at Strasbourg with a first class honors degree in Biomechanics and Genetics, she joined her former mentor Samuel Hayden on Mars to head up the Lazarus Project. A few months after arriving at the Argent Facility, Olivia was diagnosed with acute idiopathic scoliosis. The cause of this deformation is unknown. Given the option of being permanently wheelchair bound or undergoing an experimental augmentation procedure, Olivia chose the surgery. After several months in seclusion, Olivia reappeared on her feet with a new titanium exoskeleton grafted into her spinal column. Although the exoskeleton allows Olivia to stand and move on her own, it causes excruciating pain. Olivia refuses any pain management medication for fear it will cloud her mind.
Olivia Pierce II
UAC REPORT FILE UQ3PJQEP
Samuel saw Olivia as a protege. He sponsored her during her formal graduation and was the driving force behind her promotion to the Global Science Council. Olivia made her fortune as one of the founders of the NanoStruct Aerospace & Defense Systems, in part thanks to a sizeable donation from Samuel. Olivia's career blossomed, and Samuel eventually offered her the freedom to design and run her own cutting edge laboratory by joining the UAC. Olivia refused, citing that she had no interest in "the energy business". When Olivia did finally leave NanoStruct it came as a shock to the scientific community. She relinquished a position of sizeable power and control to work at an isolated outpost 140 million miles from earth. A former colleague of Olivia's at NanoStruct stated that Samuel sent her an artifact recovered near the Argent Fracture, after which she became obsessed with joining the UAC. A few weeks later, she accepted the offer and became the leader of the Lazarus Project, working directly under Samuel Hayden.
Olivia Pierce III
UAC REPORT FILE JT6TG4XG
Before joining the UAC, Olivia was open to discussion about her endeavors and beliefs. She was known to have been an avid world traveler, served a 2-year tour of duty with the Global Science Council, and even spent time serving as a missionary in South America - which she noted was a "spiritual but frivolous pilgrimage". Since moving to Mars she has become a recluse, cutting off friends and family to focus on her secretive work on the Lazarus Project. She is rarely seen outside of the lab and no longer attends board meetings or any UAC press events. Past colleagues of Olivia's have noted that this behavior may just mean that she has something spectacular to reveal in the near future.
Samuel Hayden I
UAC REPORT FILE RDF07075
Samuel Hayden is the Chairman of the UAC. Born into the wealthy and powerful Hayden Family, he completed his Masters in Theoretical Physics at Oxford University. He showed prodigious talent in several fields, including thermodynamics, electromagnetic theory, and nuclear sciences. At a young age he established the Samuel Hayden Foundation, a philanthropic organization dedicated to sponsoring young scientific talent and funding scientific programs in schools and colleges. His daunting intellect made him a prime target for the UAC, and they recruited him soon after he was appointed General Director of the Global Science Council. Samuel took over leadership of the UAC a few months after the discovery of the Argent Fracture, and immediately put the Argent Tower into production. During construction of the Argent Tower, Samuel was diagnosed with stage 4 inoperable brain cancer. Samuel was given 6 months to live. He dedicated those last few months to finding a radical solution to his mortality: cybernetic transference.
Samuel Hayden II
UAC REPORT FILE T989XB08
Before Samuel Hayden "died", he completed detailed instructions and designs for a new body: a bionic automaton with a plasmatronic processing core (a biomechanical brain). Samuel instructed that his frontal and temporal lobes were to remain intact, but the functions of his parietal and occipital lobes were to be bypassed and networked to the plasmatronic core. Samuel's personality, memories, reasoning and comprehension would be carried over to his new framework, but his perception and calculation would become supercharged. Powered by Argent Caches (and later by an Argent Accumulator), the cybernetic transference was a success. Samuel returned, bigger, stronger, and more formidable than before in a 3- meter-tall mechanoid body. When his decision to choose such a mammoth mechanical physique was questioned, Samuel responded "Dedicating the future of mankind is dangerous work. You never know when we may need a hero." Stem cells and neural conditioning agents keep his organic matter (specifically, his brain) constantly rejuvenating. He has "existed" for over 130 years now, and it is presumed his lifespan will be indefinite. It is said that his body has long since passed but his soul will live on forever.
Samuel Hayden III
UAC REPORT FILE D1171867
After his rebirth, Samuel was appointed as Project Director of the Argent Facility. It was deemed too bizarre to have the world's first Cyborg leading the most powerful corporation in the Solar System. Mechanoid Samuel Hayden proved to be an even more impressive figure than his mortal self. Under his leadership, Argent technology exploded. The work achieved at the Argent Facility destroyed the boundaries of our understanding of physics. As Samuel himself said "We rewrote the book and called it Argent". After the unveiling of the Global Energy Distribution Matrix, it was clear who was really in control of the UAC. Samuel Hayden's triumphant return to power was complete. In a stunning display of bravado and conceit, when the GEDM was finally switched on Samuel Hayden was live streamed from in front of the Argent Tower, pulling a massive 12-foot power lever to dispatch the first Argent package to earth. This sent a clear message to the people of the known Solar System: there is only one "man" that can turn on the power.
VEGA I
UAC REPORT FILE OYLW96M
Running the Argent Facility takes a lot of power. Not just electrical and mechanical power, but computational power. With so many interdependent systems feeding off a single power source, the UAC decided it would need to create a central mainframe computer to manage not only the flow of Argent Energy, but the day to day operations of a facility with over 60,000 employees. This mega-computer - the brain-child of Samuel Hayden, head of the UAC - would exceed the computational ability of any systems before it, and more importantly, would be recognized at the first truly autonomous Artificial Intelligence entity. They named it
VEGA.
VEGA II
UAC REPORT FILE D5AAMXN
VEGA is an acronym, though the exact meaning has not been revealed by Hayden or the UAC. Once named, it was decided that the AI would need to be given a personality to make interactions more agreeable. A gender was assigned (male), a virtual age was established (50 years old), and a colloquial speech pattern implemented. As such, speaking to VEGA is a calming and pleasant affair. A blind study was conducted with Computer Science students to see if VEGA would pass the Turing test. The students was instructed to ask a series of questions to both VEGA (via sat-link) and a mathematics professor from MIT to see if they could tell which one was the computer. 92% of the students thought they were both human. Only 8% detected that VEGA was a computer. VEGA also played the professor.
VEGA III
UAC REPORT FILE 5TW1DBY1
VEGA is powered by a mix of unrefined Argent plasma (taken directly from the Argent Fracture) and UAC technology. While details regarding the development of VEGA are a closely guarded secret, it is rumored that VEGA's core is powered by a piece of arcane technology found near the Argent Fracture. The behavior and calculating power of VEGA is unprecedented in AI theory, and the system is, to some extent, "self-taught". After the initial core software was uploaded, VEGA began gathering data from all the UAC subsystems without oversight, and effectively took control of the Mars facility operations. VEGA also proposed a more effective method for processing Argent plasma into Argent Energy, devised better analysis theorems, and even designed new Argent compression schema, allowing for the development of Argent Caches, and later, the Argent Accumulator.
