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Obsidian
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== Storyline == The year is 2066. You are scientist Lilah Kerlins. [This "you are" is somewhat literal, as the entire story unfolds through the eyes of the nonspeaking Lilah (except from one instance where, silently, Dr. Kerlins appears to shriek when a dark crystal mountain begins to rumble.), giving the player a narrating role somewhat similar to that found in the later [[Half-Life 2#Narration|Half-Life]] games]. You and your partner, Max, have just launched the Ceres satellite into orbit around the Earth. The satellite is designed to release [[nanobots]] into Earth's atmosphere in order to counteract depletion of the [[ozone layer]] and [[air pollution]]. Because the satellite has been endowed with a powerful [[artificial intelligence]], it is thought that all further control may safely be ceded to the satellite itself. Thus, you and Max go on vacation in the woods of a mountain (one of the first areas to be positively affected by Ceres). As you check your e-mail on your [[Personal digital assistant|PDA]] at the campsite, you hear Max scream in the distance. Running to check on him, you suddenly come across a large black outcropping on the side of the mountain. This object is the "Obsidian" which the game is named for. Suddenly the glass opens, and you fall inside. The game begins. Unfortunately, Ceres' artificial intelligence has become sentient, with all the traditional problems that causes. In an attempt to figure out who she (the A.I. refers to itself in the female tone) is, Ceres has used her nanobots to create a world. The way in which you explore it will help her to explore herself, her creators, and what it means to think. However, there is something more sinister occurring within Ceres' mind. She seems to be discovering all the faults and downsides of humanity, and asking herself whether or not the Earth wouldn't be better off without people on it. Unlike other Artificially Intelligent supercomputers, Ceres was not made conscious by learning about humans directly through a central device, but instead through the growing complexity of her nanobots, creating a ''distributed intelligence'', akin to that of a beehive or anthill. In order to communicate with Lilah and her partner, the nanobots constructed a strange form of woman, in this case, a female android with a white porcelain, human head with silver eyes which blink from the lower eyelid and a bizarre electrical halo cap on top, and this android is known only as "The Conductor". Every time this android speaks, her (or its) mouth does not move, but instead the sides of her face flash light blue with every syllable. During the complexity, Ceres, for unknown reasons, thought of her two creators as mother and father, begging for approval, yet able to change the world completely on her own. Max, suspicious of this, was imprisoned within his own invention: The Programmable Molecular Assembler, despite the fact that the PMA was the very thing that created her. As the strategy guide states, "She's a huge monster, and a great, big, baby." Why the guide addresses Ceres as "The Conductor" is unknown, but could possibly be because the "bad" ending of Obsidian shows Ceres "rebooting" the Earth by waving her arms in a fashion similar to that of an orchestra conductor, inspired by Gregory Gladstone. The game is extremely linear until the end, although two realms involve areas that can be accessed in a number of different combinations. At that point, you are given the option to either talk Ceres out of destroying humanity, or cede that she is correct. Depending on which you choose, the game plays one of two endings. The "good" ending is that you return to the original world, with Max by your side. The "bad" ending is that you return to a world which has been "rebooted" by Ceres, who in its misguided urge to cleanse the planet has erased the very source of the pollutions - mankind, thereby leaving Earth in a bleak, primordial state as a charred, foggy mud hole. (although Ceres thinks it is devoid of contamination.) In the latter ending, said A.I. allows Max and the player to witness this realm, with Ceres being the goddess to make the area, and her creators being its 'Adam' and 'Eve'.
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