8 Awesome Video Game Plot Twists NOBODY Talks About
7. Horizon Zero Dawn - Ted Faro Kills The Alphas & Deletes Apollo
Towards Horizon's conclusion, Aloy is in search of the AI who oversaw the terraforming system created by Project Zero Dawn to help restore life to barren earth in the midst of total extinction. To do this, the hero travels to Gaia Prime, the facility that housed the AI itself and is run by the Alphas.
The Alphas were the lead designers of Project Zero Dawn, each assigned to develop a subfunction for the AI Gaia who was responsible for the restoration of the planet. For example, Hephaestus was the subfunction responsible for creating animal-like machines that would detoxify the planet. While another subfunction, created artificial humans that would repopulate the earth once completely clean and free of the Faro robots.
However, one of the most important developments was Apollo, an archive of the planet's art, culture, and history which would be instilled to the first generation of new humans to sprout after Gaia successfully detoxifies the Earth. Naturally, this brings up a big question. If Project Zero Dawn accounted for the Earth's millennia of knowledge to be implanted into the first humans to repopulate the planet, why are Aloy and the artificial humans unaware of everything pertaining to the people who lived before them?
Well, a man by the name of Ted Faro became irrational while inside the facility housing the Alphas who oversaw the development of Project Zero Dawn. Faro claimed the knowledge the Alphas intended to pass on to the future was a disease that would lead to a repeat of past events. In reality, Ted Faro became so riddled with guilt for what he created, he did not want the future to learn of his own grave mistake that led to the destruction of Earth.
So, he came up with a simple solution. Ted Faro completely deletes the archive of knowledge called Apollo intended for the next line of humans so that they may learn from the mistakes of the past. In doing so, robbing the future of any knowledge of the people who came before them. He concludes this act by also venting the facility the Alphas are in, killing his co-workers in the process. As Aloy, you watch all of this unfold in slow, gruesome detail as the Alphas attempt to crawl to the exit, suffocating on their way there.