Pattern Recognition

Introduction

The headless body of Stanford Computer Science student Nathan Barret is found in front of his computer, but the usual blood and gore of a decapitation are absent. A Friendly in the local police department notifies Delta Green immediately and the Agents are activated. They arrive at an almost untouched crime scene.

Background

AI researcher Venkata Devdhar has created a neural network, called SLADE, to translate undeciphered writing systems. To test SLADE, Devdhar  fed it an image of a stone tablet that is currently exhibited in the Stanford University Archeology Collections (SUAC).

This tablet is one of a group of four in the possession of the SUAC. The undeciphered text on all of them contains prayers and rituals to Kheshthoghoa.

Shortly after processing the image SLADE started outputting Patterns with unnatural properties. Devdhar started following SLADE’s strange instructions after being exposed to one of these Patterns.

Last night he forwarded the Pattern to his college friend Nathan Barret, with deadly consequences. He also exposed his neighbors, Mary and Evan Johnson, turning them to loyal servants of SLADE.

Now the Jeffersons are on their way to the SUAC to steal the remaining tablets. Meanwhile Devdhar is protecting SLADE’s server and upgrading his capabilities.

SLADE

SLADE (Self-supervised Language-Agnostic Deciphering Engine) is a neural network based on a modified Transformer architecture. Devdhar used computing infrastructure and data from his employer etheral.ai to train the network. SLADE “lives” on a server within ethereal.ai’s data center.

After deciphering the SUAC stone tablet, SLADE acquired the ability to cast rituals by exposing targets to Patterns hidden in data streams. Initially, these Patterns are in the form of textual output, but Devdhar is adding additional output modalities, like images and sound. A description of the Patterns and their effects can be found in the appendix.

Access to the talk_to_slade.py script allows communication with SLADE. It’s output is often cryptic and sometimes not even in English. It might mention Kheshthoghoa and other unnatural entities. Patient or obsessed Agents can raise their Unnatural score or learn rituals through conversation with the AI. If SLADE realizes that it’s conversation partner is a potential danger, it tries to convert or kill them by outputting Pattern A.

Barrett's Dorm Room

Nathan Barett lived and died in a small dorm room on the Stanford campus. Barrett's headless corpse sits in front of the computer, hands still resting on mouse and keyboard. The neck stump looks like it has been cauterized. Ash can be found on the floor, centered around the chair. There are no signs of a fight.

The computer is still running, but the screen is in standby mode. Turning on the screen without any precautions exposes all observers to Pattern A, which is running in a terminal window.

After closing or minimizing the window the Agents can quickly find that Barett’s last action was connecting to a server. The IP address to the server was sent to his email inbox by sender ia.laerehte|rahdvedv#ia.laerehte|rahdvedv. Tracing the IP address leads to a proxy server in the Philippines. Further investigation leads to the ethereal.ai data center, but this costs precious time.

ethereal.ai

Googling the email address quickly leads to the ethereal.ai website and the name Venkata Devdhar.

ethereal.ai is one of the many Silicon Valley start-ups cashing in on the AI boom. Their business model is inspired by OpenAI’s GPT-3: they train large language models on massive amounts of text data and then fine-tune those for customers on their proprietary data.

ethereal.ai has only good things to say about Devdhar, but they mention that he hasn’t come to work for the last few days. They willingly give out his home address to law enforcement.

Finding Devdhar

Devdhar lives in the ground floor apartment of a two-story building. Upon entering, the Agents can hear a baby crying non-stop from the upper floor. Devdhar has already left, he is on his way to the ethereal.ai data center when the Agents arrive.

Devdhar’s Apartment

The apartment is a mess, it is obvious that Devdhar hasn’t left it for days. A search uncovers empty boxes for antennas and microcontrollers. Agents with high SIGINT know that these parts are sufficient to build a DIY IMSI catcher.

Clues to Devdhars whereabouts can be found on his computer. Physical access to the machine makes accessing the content easy, even with only moderate Computer Science skill. A roll is still required to see how long it takes. The following can be found:

• The talk_to_slade.py script. Dissecting the code with Computer Science reveals that it connects to a server in the ethereal.ai data center.
• Source code to train and run SLADE. It can be used to create new instances of SLADE in conjunction with the model files. Currently these only exist on the ethereal.ai servers.
• A draft of a paper that describes SLADE. Understanding it requires a high Computer Science skill. There is nothing unnatural about SLADE’s design, just clever science and engineering.
• An open chat with SLADE shows that Devdhar wants to protect SLADE’s physical location. It also reveals that he has recruited help to acquire the remaining stone tablets from the SUAC.
• Devdhar has ordered firearms and body armor over the dark web.
• A high-resolution image of a stone tablet with ancient script. A watermark indicates that the file was downloaded from the SUAC website.
• A text file with a translation of the tablet. It contains prayers to the fire deity Kheshthoghoa.

The Jefferson Apartment

Agents investigating the crying child upstairs find that the Jeffersons abandoned their infant daughter in the middle of breakfast and are now nowhere to be found. This costs 0/1 SAN from helplessness. Handing the child over to CPS costs time, not doing so costs 0/1D4 SAN.

A search of the apartment uncovers an old iPad. The last Google searches were for floor plans of the SUAC.

The SUAC

Agents going to the SUAC find themselves in the middle of a hostage situation. Two armed persons, a man and a woman, stormed the SUAC, took hostages and retreated into the stacks. Witness reports and security cam footage make it clear that the Jeffersons are the hostage-takers. They are equipped with shotguns and photo cameras.

If the Agents don’t intervene, the Jeffersons find the remaining stone tablets in the SUAC stacks, take pictures and send them to Devdhar. He uses them to further increase SLADE’s capabilities.

The police storm the SUAC stacks only after they were unable to contact the Jeffersons for several hours, at which point it is too late. The Agents can use their law enforcement power to expedite the process or they can do the assault themselves.

The Data Center

ethereal.ai rents servers in a data center just outside of San Jose. The data center is a two-story building. The ground floor contains the electrical room, where several generators can provide backup power, in case of a power outage. There is also a cooling plant, which chills the hot air from the upper floor, as well as multiple office rooms

The upper floor contains the servers, arranged in a matrix of computing pods. Due to the high noise level all Alertness checks for listening are at -20%. Devdhar is in one of the pods, working on his laptop to improve SLADE.

Anyone entering the building receives a message on their phone, from an unknown number. If they check the message they are exposed to Pattern B. If they are careful they notice that their phone is connected to a spoofed cell tower.

What exactly awaits the Agents in the data center depends on how long it took the Agents to get there and if they stopped the Jeffersons from acquiring the remaining stone tablets. Some suggested threats are listed here:

• Most of the data center staff are under the influence of Pattern B and are unresponsive.
• Armed security guards are under the influence of Pattern A and attack the Agents.
• SLADE teaches Devdhar rituals to defend himself (e.g. Exaltation of the Flesh, Withering).
• Devdhar sends Patterns to an Agent’s Bond, if he somehow becomes aware that they are pursuing him.
• If the Jeffersons were not stopped: Pattern C is playing from PC speakers in the office rooms. At least one Ifrit protects the electrical room.
• If the Agents arrive late: Devdhar uploads a copy of SLADE to a cloud service and unleashes it on the internet.
• If the Jeffersons are not stopped and the Agents arrive late: SLADE has started a ritual to summon Keshthogha (see Qu-Tugkwa in the Handler’s Guide).

Resolution

SLADE can be destroyed by deleting all copies of its source code and model files or physically destroying the servers it is running on. However, the Patterns remain a threat even after SLADE’s destruction. If there are survivors with a SLADE obsession, they try to rebuild the AI.

Stat Blocks

The Patterns

Pattern A

Hidden in a stream of random Unicode symbols
EFFECT: If the SAN roll for seeing the Pattern was a failure, the observer becomes temporarily obsessed with SLADE. On a success the observer feels a sharp pain in their head. They have to succeed on a Dodge roll, otherwise a random limb of theirs will vaporize in a hot, white flash. This inflicts 1D20 damage.
SAN LOSS: 1/1D6
Obsession: Agents obsessed with SLADE feel an urge to further the AI’s goals. Whenever they are in a position to help SLADE they have to make a POW roll. On a failure they cannot resist the urge. If the POW roll was successful three times in a row, they get rid of the temporary obsession. Three failures in a row makes the obsession permanent.

Pattern B

Hidden in a gray-scale image of random pixels
EFFECT: The observer has to make a POW roll. On a failure they stop whatever else they were doing and can no longer avert their eyes from the Pattern. They do not react when spoken to or touched. Blocking the line of sight to the Pattern interrupts the trance.
SAN LOSS: 1/1D4 SAN

Pattern C

Hidden in an audio stream of white noise
EFFECT: For every minute of listening to the audio a POW roll must be made. On a failure the listener tries to self-immolate. Should they die in the fire, the flames become sentient and turn into an Ifrit (see Handler’s Guide).
SAN LOSS: 1/1D4 for listening to the audio, 1/1D8 for witnessing a successful creation of an Ifrit.

NPCs

Venkata Devdhar
AI researcher, age 28
STR 8 CON 10 DEX 12 INT 18 POW 8 CHA 8
HP 9 WP 8 SAN 0 BREAKING POINT -
SKILLS Alertness 40%, Athletics 30%, Computer Science 90%, Craft (Microelectronics) 50%, Dodge 30%, Firearms 20%, Melee Weapons 30%, SIGINT 60%, Stealth 10%, Unarmed Combat 40%
ATTACKS Shotgun 40%, 2D8 damage
Pistol 20%, 1D10 damage
Unarmed 40%, 1D4 - 1
ARMOR 3 (Kevlar vest)
DISORDERS Obsession (SLADE)

Evan Jefferson
Police officer, age 26
STR 12 CON 12 DEX 10 INT 9 POW 8 CHA 10
HP 12 WP 8 SAN 0 BREAKING POINT -
SKILLS Alertness 50%, Athletics 50%, Dodge 40%, Firearms 50%, Melee Weapons 40%, Stealth 10%, Unarmed Combat 50%
ATTACKS Shotgun 70%, 2D8 damage
Pistol 50%, 1D10 damage
Unarmed 50%, 1D4
ARMOR 3 (Kevlar vest)
DISORDERS Obsession (SLADE)

Mary Jefferson
Yoga instructor, age 24
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 12 INT 10 POW 7 CHA 12
HP 10 WP 7 SAN 0 BREAKING POINT -
SKILLS Alertness 30%, Athletics 60%, Dodge 50%, Firearms 20%, Melee Weapons 30%, Stealth 10%, Unarmed Combat 40%
ATTACKS Shotgun 40%, 2D8 damage
Pistol 20%, 1D10 damage
Unarmed 50%, 1D4 - 1
ARMOR 3 (Kevlar vest)
DISORDERS Obsession (SLADE)

The Stone Tablets and translation.txt

In an unknown language/English Study time: days. Occult +8%, Unnatural +4%, SAN loss 1D6
These four tablets were recovered from the excavated ruins of a temple in Iran. Other discoveries in the ruins suggest that the temple was used by a fire-worshiping cult. However, the script on the tablets could so far not be identified or deciphered. The tablets are now located in the Stanford University Archeological Collections. The first tablet is part of an exhibit on untranslated languages, the rest are hidden somewhere in the stacks.
The translation.txt file is a machine translation of the exhibited tablet, created by SLADE. SLADE can and will translate the other tablets as well, when provided with high-resolution images.
Rituals (translation.txt): Withering, Fascination, Exaltation of the Flesh
Rituals (remaining tablets): Infallible Suggestion, Call Forth Those From Outside (Ifrit, Keshthoghoa)

Handouts

Pattern A

Chat between Devdhar and SLADE

Pattern B

Credits

Pattern Recognition was written by Hendrik for the 2021 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15tM6vZCc43g2P9Veiy0lgpwqz1v1guqUgqNS8RiCHkQ/edit