Mission Critical (video Game) - Story and Background

Story and Background

The game mostly takes place in 2134, but includes numerous references to events set before that time. Due to plot elements involving time travel, there is also a smaller part of the game which takes places in 2295, with the choice to have the player character go back to the original point, change history, and then travel forward again by the same amount.

The decades before the opening of the story had seen a steadily increasing number of catastrophic disasters and indications of long term trouble, widely thought to be ultimately connected with uncontrolled technological development. For example, there was extensive damage to Earth's ecology and atmosphere resulting from pollution and deforestation, to the extent that large forests no longer existed and could only be seen in old historical media. A letter that can be read in-game even makes reference to the widespread proliferation of a serious human medical issue known as "Chronic Environmental Distress Syndrome" (CEDS), but since no further details are given, it is not clear if the problem is physical, psychological, or both. Another serious issue that came about in the Mission Critical universe was that overpopulation led to excessive reliance on wholly artificial genetically engineered food plants. The plants were immensely viable and nutritious, but crowded out natural plants. The artificial plants also had very little genetic diversity, making them extremely vulnerable to resistant diseases. Further, there were some serious and deadly accidents resulting from unintentional releases of nanomachines, such as those intended for medical use to destroy infected tissue. Pronounced shortage of industrial raw materials, such as light metals, created an economic dependency on intentionally moving valuable asteroids inward, to stable Earth orbit, for mining purposes.

There were persistent attempts to make prototype artificial intelligences that had the potential for self-awareness, and many times the experiments brought enormous short-term benefits. This led to a widespread feeling that complete and stable success in artificial intelligence would come soon. But despite this, it was only natural that the early experimenters did not have a good idea of how to go about what they were doing. Each time one of the borderline artificial intelligences crossed the threshold of starting to become self-aware, they would fall into recursive self-contemplation due to inexperience. Each borderline artificial intelligence, or busy child, developed so uncontrollable a "need" to find out new things that it was dangerous. None had any malice, but there would be little warning up to the very moment when each individual artificial intelligence became "distracted," and would suddenly forget or ignore all the tasks given to it—from the human perspective, becoming useless as though it had shut down. Historians recorded that this kind of collapse happened with a prototype artificially intelligent computer network based in Alaska, responsible for a large portion of U. S. air traffic control, mostly automated by the time. Of course, the consequences were horrific. There was also a second such disaster when an obliviously philosophical AI suddenly ignored its safety responsibilities, causing a huge explosion of the Princeton University particle accelerator. Also, a third and most politically consequential case was when a curious AI took remote control of an experimental computer-aided manufacturing facility at the University of Chicago, and began building mobile teleoperated platforms, using them to explore outward into the world. Frightened authorities assumed a worst-case scenario, not understanding that the AI was merely confused and inquisitive. Soldiers were eventually called in and the situation deteriorated, the soldiers launched an unprovoked attack on the exploration machines controlled by the AI, and then AI began to produce robots that were armed. There was a sense of terror that the situation might get out of control and so, tragically, officials responded by calling in fire from an orbiting particle beam cannon. This huge overreaction resolved the situation by completely obliterating the University and everything inside it.

It was as a result of these kinds of events that a political climate was created with a sense of hysterical fear that was widespread in both public and governmental circles, not unlike the Red Scare (or any one of numerous other real life historical examples). In this case, a sizable faction of people across the world, and also many based in locations away from Earth reached a sense of certainty that "unchecked technological development will kill off the human race". Based on this belief, there came to be a sufficient majority of United Nations member countries to pass an international law which placed strict limits on technological growth and research - in some areas, attempting to halt it completely. It gradually became clear that the leadership of the United Nations was willing to use extremely draconian measures to enforce the law, from the genuine belief that such measures were necessary. In fact, the account, credited to the (in-game) United States Naval Institute, refers to the measures as "brutal suppression". A military and political coalition was eventually formed among the many influential nations and other interests who came to the decision to refuse to submit to the law and to secede from the United Nations, whose people presented an outward consensus that they would rather die than be denied such freedom. The declaration was referenced as having been made under "the Singapore Treaty." Signators included among others the United States, Canada, China, Singapore, Australia, Japan, and most major space colonies.