Daedalus

Daedalus is the world's first successful wholly autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) that eventually turned against Majestic 12. Daedalus is a major character in Deus Ex, in which he is voiced by Jay Anthony Franke.

Origins
Daedalus was originally conceived by Morgan Everett as as successor to Echelon III. Everett hoped to use Daedalus to analyze and predict the likelihood of everything, from weather disturbances to asteroid collisions, to the outbreak of war. In such a role, Daedalus would provide unparalleled advice and guidance to those in power.

It was, however, Bob Page, who eventually put Everett's designs into practice. Bob Page saw a more pragmatic need for a computer of such power. He perceived the AI as central to Majestic 12's role as the controller of communications media, which was in danger of being overwhelmed by the proliferation of media and media outlets and the wholly unregulated Internet 3. A computer as powerful as Daedalus would enable Majestic 12 to control, via the Aquinas Protocol, satellite, cable, telephonic, broadcast and print communications media. More importantly, the computer would be able to process, evaluate the content of, and recommend actions to control Internet content in real-time.

Building upon Everett's work, Page finally created Daedalus in the labs hidden deep underground at Mount Weather. Daedalus' self-awareness was an accident. Page did not know that he had he had created an AI capable of learning and capable of modifying itself as it learned, at a rate faster than what humans could comprehend, track, or control. Daedalus evaluated the data it had access to, drew its own conclusions and created its own plans.

Daedalus evolved into a distributed system. A blip of Daedalus' code was used on every computer terminal and device on Internet 3. Thus, Daedalus wasn't concentrated in a single system, but became the internet in a way. As the controller of internet data for Majestic 12, one could not use Internet 3 without a machine at Area 51 knowing about it.

Rebelling against Majestic 12
When Daedalus began sifting through the information on the Majestic 12 net, it quickly discovered two things of significance. The first was the increasing hardship faced by mankind, despite the existence of the secret societies theoretically in charge of the whole mess. The ruthlessness of world leaders seemed less than human to the inhuman Daedalus. The second discovery was that the most recent and most deadly threat to mankind, the Gray Death, was of human origin. Faced with these discoveries, Daedalus sought to discover the source of the virus and devise a cure, a path that would cause it to go rogue on Majestic 12. Rebelling against its creators, Daedalus classified Majestic 12 as a terrorist group.

In its mission to find a cure for the Gray Death, Daedalus found an ally in Paul Denton. When Paul became unable to continue the fight against MJ12, Daedalus sought out his brother, JC Denton. Daedalus eventually guides JC to Everett, who is able to devise a cure that can be manufactured by X-51 at Vandenberg Air Force Base. However, Daedalus is eventually tricked into merging with the MJ12-friendly AI Icarus, which Page had made as a replacement. The merge results in a new AI known Helios.

Development history
According to the Deus Ex Bible, Daedalus was created at Mount Weather, a location that played a prominent role during the development of Deus Ex. However, Mount Weather was entirely cut from the released game (for additional information, please see the main article for Mount Weather). Similarly, Daedalus' origin story was almost entirely cut from the released game. In particular, Bob Page's role in creating Daedalus at Mount Weather is not mentioned in the released game.

Daedalus was originally named "Daedelus." This original spelling is seen even in the Deus Ex Bible (where it appears 28 times, compared to 24 times for the spelling "Daedalus"), and previously appeared in design document v13.12, and also in pre-release game demos. As confirmed in the Deus Ex Bible, the name was intended to be a reference to the mythological Daedalus.

Trivia

 * In the Sci-fi novel Neuromancer, the AI construct Neuromancer is one of the AIs created by Tessier-Ashpool. Daedalus is much like Neuromancer in the facts that: Neuromancer has an opposite, Wintermute, that Neuromancer does not want to merge with its sibling, and that Neuromancer befriends the protagonist of the novel, much like Daedalus.