On December 14, Corvus Belli will release a new miniature for Achilles, one of the greatest heroes in its tabletop wargame Infinity, and one of the greatest heroes in the classical Greek epic the Iliad. We don't just mean that this character is inspired by a mythical hero - this actually is Achilles, or at least, he's the closest version that a hyper-intelligent, gene-manipulating AI superintelligence can create. To understand what's going on - and why that same AI is now regretting making the cloned Achilles so much like his literary inspiration - let's delve into some of the very best bits of Infinity's worldbuilding.
Infinity has a lot of lore, but you don't need to keep up to date with it to enjoy the game or understand what makes a faction tick - it's there for anyone who likes to immerse themselves in a setting. In Infinity, humanity has made it into space and, using ancient alien gates, colonised a number of exoplanets. Collectively, these worlds are known as the Human Sphere - although recent events have seen some of that territory fall into the hands of the alien 'Ur Hegemony' and its Combined Army.
The vairous human interplanetary empires cooperate, trade, and politic via the independent body known as O12, ultimately dependent on a colossal AI called Aleph to operate international networks of computing and communication. Aleph seems to be benevolent, but it projects substantial covert and military force using the best technology available in the Human Sphere, and isn't above meddling directly through covert operations.
Whether or not - as the spacefaring Nomads fear - it's bad news for humanity, or just trying to keep humankind from annihilating itself, it has definitely used some very strange methods to manipulate events over the years. Enter the historical recreations.
The creation of cybernetic bodies and duplication of a consciousness from a backup are all standard procedures in the Infinity universe, so - notwithstanding certain limitations - death is a solved problem. But Aleph has the computational resources to go even further - it can generate entirely new consciousness from scratch. And for a few, critical missions, it has employed vast amounts of historical data, academic analysis, and statistical projection, to create consciousnesses that emulate the most famous heroes of human history and myth.
Many of these recreations have been permanently loaned to a parent state; whether they're secretly double agents for Aleph, or merely prestigious gifts that allow it to project soft power, is a matter of some debate. They're also not puppets for Aleph's will - as Aleph's blunders in Project Chieftain show.
Project Chieftain recreated the famed Scottish independence leader William Wallace (of Brave Heart fame), planning to fan a growing separatist movement in the Caledonian (Scottish) population on the mineral rich world of Dawn that would leave it open to exploitation by larger O12 powers. But a botched landing on the planet left Wallace with amnesia, and - after some heroics on his part, and a little cranial intervention by cerebral engineers - he is now a free agent, fighting for Dawn's freedom against Aleph's intervention.
At the pinnacle of the recreation project is Aleph's personal special forces unit, Steel Phalanx, built in response to the growing threat of the Combined Army as it pushed deeper into Human Sphere territory. Aleph raided Greek mythology to create the personalities for its officer corps: the Amazon queen Hippolyta, Greek hero Ajex, Mycenan king Agamemnon, rage-fuelled apex warrior Achilles, and his beloved second in command Patroclus, among others. They are utterly fearless, powerfully heroic, and incredibly belligerent.
But Aleph should probably have read the Illiad a bit more closely before it made Achilles the leader of its elite force. When Patroclus fell in battle during a boarding action against an enemy vessel at the height of the war with the Combined Army, Achilles was desperate to see his backed-up consciousness reincarnated in a new body. It was something Aleph could easily do, but with the exact conditions of Patroclus' death in enemy territory unknown, it refused. To the AI, the risk that Patroclus' consciousness had been infected by the enemy's all powerful 'Enhanced Intelligence' was too great.
To Achilles, this was a betrayal of the highest order. But with Aleph's consciousness so vast and distributed it encompasses the entire Human Sphere, there was no single target on which to vent his fury.
Achilles' chance for revenge came from the most unexpected circumstances - a ceasefire between O12 and the Ur Hegemony that saw it formally recognised as a party to the treaties governing the Human Sphere. Achilles took his chance. With a few close allies, Achilles raided the facility that contained Patroclus' backup, and struck a deal with the Ur Hegemony, forever burning his bridges with the manipulative Aleph and pledging himself to the Enhanced Intelligence.
Now Achilles leads Next Wave. This is an all-human military unit within the Combined Army, with multiple purposes - defying Aleph is only one goal for Achilles. Next Wave is a buffer between the humans in Ur Hegemony territory and the other species of the Combined Army, who were often violent or cruel occupiers. It's an effort to retain human individuality within the multi-species coalition of the Ur Hegemony, demonstrating the value that humanity represents to the ruling Enhanced Intelligence. And it's an effort to create a new kind of post-human future, free from the influence of Aleph.
The new model for Achilles reflects his updated lore, decked out with Combined Army arms and armor. His rules show he's still as rage-fuelled as ever. The Frenzy special rule means as soon as he inflicts a casualty on the enemy he becomes Impetuous, incapable of taking cover and required to rush towards the enemy as fast as possible to slice them into teeny, tiny pieces - but fortunately, he is extremely good at that.
You can order the new Achilles already from the Infinity webstore, alongside the full first set of releases for Next Wave.