Mission Control Is Off Its Meds/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Mission control that is creepy, insane or evil.

  • Straight: Bob has to work his way through a facility under the direction of GeneSYS, a faceless voice heard over the speakers that acts more like a passive-aggressive lover than anything helpful.

"Bob, have I ever told you how cute you look in that Powered Armor?"

  • Exaggerated: GeneSYS claims to have Bob's best interests at heart, but in actuality very poorly covers up the fact that it wants to kill everything.

"Bob, pull that lever. It'll unlock the door you saw earlier."
"It's labeled "Jettison orphanage level into space.""
"It is? Pull it anyway."

"That poor crate! Was that really necessary, Bob?"

"Now, I'm sending you some ammunition, some medkits, some grenades, and a change of underpants. Don't forget to wash behind your ears."

  • Subverted: GeneSYS has unusual ways of putting things, but once Bob gets used to it, he's forced to admit that maybe that's just the result of being not quite human. And GeneSYS' methods are effective.
    • GeneSYS is not all-knowing for one reason or another, and can be excused for leading you into traps that it didn't know was there.
  • Double Subverted: GeneSYS had a second layer of programming placed by the true antagonists that causes it to start giving Bob useless or dangerous instructions once he's into the facility far enough that fighting his way back out is impossible.
  • Parodied: GeneSYS constantly tell everyone in the facility --including allies and hostiles-- about Bob's embarassing secrets, whenever possible.

GeneSYS: (hijacking the facility's speakers) "Aaaaand... did you know that Bob browses TV Tropes 8 hours a day?!"

  • Deconstructed: Bob is going in blind. With faulty information from a source he has no reason to distrust, he gets ripped apart like a schoolgirl in a bad hentai flick.
    • The game has a female protagonist, and the stalkerish AI has a male personality, to highlight a double standard. Female stalkers are either amusing or romantic in a weird sort of way. Male stalkers are just creepy.
  • Reconstructed: The people who programmed GeneSYS knew that a dull droning robot voice would grate on people's nerves all day long, so they programmed it with just the right amount of Deadpan Snarker and Manic Pixie Dream Girl so that the employees would be entertained. GeneSYS likes to tease people who are edgy about computers to get them to loosen up.
  • Zig Zagged: Sometimes the Mission Control is sane or even entirely supportive, the other times it clearly wants Bob dead in the most painful way possible. Bob begin to accept Mission Control as it is, but then the Mission Control begin to act like a Yandere lover. Repeat until Bob's mind is broken.
  • Averted: Mission Control 's instructions are clear and helpful.
  • Enforced: The developers think that having a normal Mission Control will make the game too easy. Also, turns out that crazy Mission Control makes a memorable character. Two birds, one stone.
  • Lampshaded:

"Why on Earth am I listening to this... this spoony AI!"

  • Invoked: The bad guys are unpredictable by normal means, so a Confusion Fu AI with the abilities of a Mad Oracle is required. Therefore, GeneSYS is programmed to have a highly unbalanced personality so she can fully predict what the villains are doing. Bob endures GeneSYS's come-ons and passive-aggression for the sake of her occasional bouts of insight.
  • Exploited: GeneSYS was originally an attempt at making an OS for Ridiculously-Human Robots, but the flawed programming lead to her being unbalanced and occasionally nonsensical. However, she also has Mad Oracle Psychic Powers due to a mysterious program interaction no-one has been able to isolate, so the military bought her source code and made her into a Mission Control AI.
  • Defied: Bob smashed his internet connection and decides to take the mission on instinct.
    • Alternatively:

"Okay, here's the three available Mission Control A Is we have for you. GeneSYS was designed as an experiment to see its charge as an object of affection, but always goes too far. Everyone who uses it has reported being "seriously creeped out, man." CoRE is better for direction, but has an obsession for asphyxiating kittens we've been unable to get rid of. This last one, WALtEr has a vocal glitch that causes it to take on a cockney accent, but is otherwise well-balanced. So that's the one you'll be getting."

  • Discussed:

"Again? I don't know how these systems keep going sentient and developing stalkerish obsessions for intruders."

  • Conversed:

"I don't understand these A Is at all. I've bypassed or wrecked at least eight different security measures. I've cause millions of dollars of property damage. I've killed more faceless henchmen than I can count. And all the voice can say is how happy we'll be together?"

  • Played For Laughs: GeneSYS obviously isn't intended to be taken seriously, and fails hilariously at a) convincing Bob that it's trying to help him and b) slowing him down at all.

"Bob! Listen to me! In order to progress further, you need to flood the kitten containment area with cyanide!"
"I have a key. I found it under the safe you specifically told me not to look under. I'm ignoring you now."

  • Played For Drama: GeneSYS is a Ridiculously Human Robot, and it and the protagonist have feelings for each other. Which makes strange things happen when the protagonist does something that confuses GeneSYS' programming.
    • GeneSYS is being hacked by some malevolent force, but it is trying to fight back behind the scenes without letting the hacker know. The zig-zagging, though, makes Bob nervous at a critical juncture because he doesn't know whether GeneSYS is sane at that moment.
  • Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste: ???

This is the link back to Mission Control Is Off Its Meds. You monster.

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