From an audio perspective, Doom Eternal is a rare game in which noise, metal, explosions, gunshots, and screaming are steadily present on the eardrums. Counter to the standard gaming experience, this means that anyone giving recommendations and advice is going to have to cut through the volume with a calm, even tone. That role is filled by the even-tempered VEGA, an AI housed in Fortress of Doom at the onset of the game.
And that is about as much as can be said without any spoilers (spoilers incoming, by the way). VEGA might be an AI (or it might not be), but it has its very own story arc. VEGA comes off like a sonic-based user interface or a narrator. That first impression is not entirely accurate, though, and with all of the twists and turns in the Doom series plot, now is a good time to sit down and ask those burning questions about the Doomguy’s AI buddy.
10 Why Does It Want To Sound Human?
It’s not that trying to trick a bunch of humans is something about Doom Eternal that makes no sense, but it is surprising that nobody stops and asks why VEGA ran its own Turing Test to see if others could be fooled.
It manipulated 92% of the people who took the test (technically 100% because no one could tell the test giver was an AI), so that’s all well and good. Yet it doesn’t answer why VEGA wanted to do this in the first place. Why does it need to disguise its electronic nature?
9 Where Does The Power Come From?
At VEGA Central Processing, players, through the eyes of the Slayer, are treated to a speech that boasts of VEGA’s power consumption. In it, the claim is that the temperature hits 1.7 megakelvins while the AI is at full capacity.
Just to provide a point of reference here, 1.7 megakelvins is 173 times as hot as the sun. So where is that amount of power coming from? Is the heat being contained someplace? Searching through the hidden details of Doom Eternal yields the explanation of Argent plasma supplying the fuel, but not how the resulting heat is exhausted.
8 How Does Power Level Affect It?
Even if gamers assume that VEGA is somehow working with full energy on the Mars facility despite the power requirements, it’s clear that VEGA’s storages after being taken away from Mars do not have nearly the same amount of Argent energy.
The Doomguy can upgrade his armor and use all kinds of upgrades to beat Ultra-Nightmare, but nothing even comes close to providing equal power. The Fortress of Doom, which later houses VEGA, is much bigger, but not on the scope of Mars. So seeing as how VEGA does not have access to full power, how badly is it restricted or slowed?
7 How Does Hardware Affect It?
Software programs aren’t always compatible with every single operating system. Gamers that install one of Doom Eternal‘s awesome mods always know to check the specs and requirements before downloading another program.
VEGA’s core is significantly different than the suit or the Fortress of Doom. Even with the proper power, how is VEGA able to interact with foreign computer and electronics systems? VEGA remarks about how it is a problem when first in the suit; did the problem ever go away?
6 Did It Actually Survive?
Veterans of the game are still finding out new things the Slayer can do in Doom Eternal. Coming back to life after dying is made possible on the right difficulty with the right secrets located. VEGA has done this before this game.
Or did he? In Doom (2016), players “save” VEGA by downloading a copy of it. A cloned human does not have the same personality as the human that it is cloned from. Saving VEGA’s computational powers might have saved some files, but how was it able to retain its understanding and experiences?
5 Does It Have Amnesia?
That last question might have something to do with this one. Does VEGA have amnesia? In a robotic sense, does VEGA retain these files that are corrupted due to incomplete hardware? Will they be “remembered” again in a host capable of deciphering them?
Doom Eternal might need some big fixes; none of them would be quite as big as “fixing” VEGA, if indeed, it has a memory problem. This is an intentional double entendre; does it need an experiential memory to remind it how to access these files or more RAM to decode its previous journeys?
4 Does It Have Opinions?
The difference between artificial intelligence and artificial processes is that the prior is permitted opinions, usually based on values learned and observed. Yet while saving the world from the demons of Hell, VEGA is reserved to mostly mathematic functions. At one time, it expresses regret, so that’s something, but it refrains from opinion.
It never comments on cool armor looks or debates with the Slayer about the best weapons in the game. Then again, it has apparently selected a side to assist in the war. Perhaps this is a limitation in the programming to make it appear that VEGA lacks preferences.
3 Who Studied Vegaphysics?
Of all the hidden items tucked away in Doom Eternal, players are dying to get ahold of a scientist that participated in the development of Vegaphysics. The name is exactly what it sounds like; it is an entire field of science dedicated to VEGA’s processes.
So who studied and pioneered it? Samuel Hayden likely took a large role, but the notes of other scientists show that he did not work alone. Where are these people and why haven’t any of them had the answers to any of the questions on this list?
2 When Did It Learn Morality?
Doom (2016) reinforces that VEGA was left on Mars for a long time to teach lessons in conjunction with managing the personnel on the station. Working with scientists that VEGA could learn very little from (though it had plenty to teach), one should question how VEGA decided on a code of ethics.
VEGA clearly has some kind of code. It rarely says “good” or “bad,” but will advise optimal and sub-optimal courses of action that are counter to the wills of the Slayer and Samuel Hayden. So it might not have opinions but does selectively suggest courses of action that it “wants.”
1 Is It The Father?
Teased briefly in Doom Eternal (“Am I The Father, Dr. Hayden?”), most players dismissed this as a computational error. After all, it is counter to everything ever researched about VEGA. Then comes the big reveal/controversy at the end of The Ancient Gods: Part 1.
While this question is essentially answered in the affirmative, that would require basically all information about VEGA before this has been a lie. Was the past true and this “reveal” a lie? Or did somebody manufacture pretty much every detail about VEGA to hide its (or his) identity? If this new information is correct, then where was VEGA before his own creation and installation on Mars? If VEGA is indeed The Father, the gamers are going to need another list after this one.
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