One of the creators of Halo wrote a novel about AI taking over the world

In 2019, writer Margaret Stohl handed a manuscript to Jason Jones, best known as one of the creators of the sci-fi game series Halo and Destiny. The two had worked together at Bungie, and Jones wanted Stohl's opinion on a book he was writing about AI's domination of the world. It was a treat […]

In 2019, Margaret Stoll was handed a manuscript by Jason Jones, best known as the co-creator of the Halo and Destiny sci-fi game series. The two had worked together at Bungie, and Jones wanted Stoll's opinion on a book he was writing about artificial intelligence taking over the world. It was an oral history of fictional events, with about 100 characters spread across 40 countries, all detailing the rise of artificial intelligence from their perspective. Stoll quickly realized that the idea could be much more than a book.

"I was floored but not surprised," he says of his reaction to the original. He is a world builder who builds on an epic scale. And his worlds are these huge stages that invite so many other collaborators and creators.”

The two sought to form a company to develop the world of science fiction in various formats. It's called Kite Stone and is billed as a "world-building studio." The idea is to bring together a pool of talent from different disciplines—Stone Kite currently has 22 in-house employees and a network of more than 250 contributors from comic book artists to screenwriters—and ask them to build the story in a platform-driven way.

The studio is starting small. Earlier this month he released the first chapter of a four-part graphic novel called One Zero One, and today he's releasing a chapter from Jones' early manuscript, which you can read below. (Whether or not the original story will be published as a stand-alone book is unclear, but the studio says it will publish additional chapters in the future.) The idea is to start with faster mediums like comics and develop the story based on contributor and audience feedback. Then, based on how that goes, they'll potentially move on to larger-scale productions like movies and games.

Stone Kite operated in stealth mode for several years, and Stohl says one of the main focus points was to simply understand how a multi-format studio works. "You want to make something that, right from the start, has the DNA to work as a movie or to work as a comic or to work as a book," he says. Having those conversations in the early stages is very different. "It's about investing in a bunch of characters and stories, trying a bunch of formats, and respecting the people you're telling the stories to and letting them help guide it."

He notes that he wanted to release this chapter, which details the dogfight between humans and AI-powered robots, because of how predictable it is. "I wanted to put it in there because it reminds me so much of 'Face Hugs' and stuff like that," Stoll explains. Cheating, bullying, the worst mirror of humanity you can see right now with some of those agent behaviors.

An excerpt from the final oral history of human invention, by Jason Jones

Suburbs of Moscow, Russian Federation

In Russia we played AIRSOFT because it was cheaper than paintball. Cheaper guns, cheaper ammo, cheaper farms, everything. The guns also looked real, not like toys. After eighteen months of marriage to an AK, how can you take pink paintballs seriously?

When I saw that my training as a radiologist was not worth it, I started playing airsoft two or three days a week. This is what I did to be happy. Soon all my friends were people who played as much. Most play Airsoft once in their life on business trips, but not us. Each of us had six or eight guns at home. Hell, we all carried smoke grenades, we thought how tough we were. In airsoft guns shoot bullets, so everyone wore face shields and goggles too.

Prepared, we looked straight out of an apocalypse movie scene, eyes hidden behind skull-painted masks. When you showed up for a bachelorette party, we were the ones you didn't want to play in front of. We take your self-esteem and send you home bleeding.

We paid for our equipment and land through the gig economy, mostly for people with real jobs. This usually meant standing in line or sitting for hours in Moscow traffic thinking about Airsoft.

Our regular crew consisted of six people: me, Vitaly, Kostya, Max, Kushki and the godfather. Kushki was our only woman - red-haired, thick as a tree. He could check each of us down to the ground and barely feel it. The godfather was a Sicilian who had immigrated to Russia for some reason, where the job market was worse, the government was more corrupt, and the weather was...Russian. The godfather talked about the cold every day as if it was a surprise.

Total Carnage Airsoft, our favorite Airsoft park near Moscow, had two arenas: one big, one small. The smaller one was an overgrown, graffiti-covered, crumbling collection of one-story buildings from an old military barracks. We played on that pitch a long time ago, very few tactical options. But the great square had a three-story brick building in the center, which we called the castle, plus many outbuildings, and plenty of trees and vegetation. We've been playing on it for three years, and we're still talking grand strategy all night long over beers.

One day before the war, we went to the field with Van Max. That was a long time before anything, maybe four years. The sun was just rising, there was snow on the ground and the air was foggy. Godfather's beautiful Russian weather had put him off the entire drive because his socks were wet, and he didn't let up until we got out of the van.

We would have loved to be the first in the lot, but when we pulled into the parking lot, it was half full of large SUVs. There were ten Mercedes-Benzes and we had never seen a single Mercedes-Benz before, it was crazy. To make matters worse, there was a tall temporary fence around the large lot, wrapped in black plastic, hiding everything on the other side. All we could see was the top of the castle, nothing else. We got out of the car and just listened to the sound of guns.

Nicky, Malik's wife, was crossing the fence in a referee's jacket and face mask. He told us it was a birthday party and the grand square would be closed all weekend. The damn Russian oligarchs are used to holding the rich above everyone else and flaunting their wealth, but this has never happened in our airspace before. I once sat in Moscow traffic for an hour while some private security detail blocked oil executive Paul Zivopisny so his daughter could photograph a wedding.

It pissed us off, but what could we do? We played on a small field. That was Russia, small people playing on a small field. That morning we were the only seasoned players in the park. Mostly we played zombies, the six of us against everyone else. In one game, there were 30 people in the other team and we still won and had no casualties. I spent an entire game up in a tree listening to them shred to pieces yelling "Hit! Hit!" And I still don't know where I am

Everyone had a good sense of humor that day, none of that nasty stuff that happens sometimes. The other players got more and more serious about trying to beat us, but in a good way, you know? After every game, we talked and laughed and tried to give them advice. It was a good mood, we went back to the van for lunch. As we were eating, this man came out of the crack in the plastic fence around the big field and lit a cigarette. He was all office plankton: nice shoes, button-down shirt under jacket, leather gloves. Soft, you know? He was not dressed for the game at all. He saw us watching him, walked over and asked if we wanted to play. Kushki like "Shall I play you?" His face melted as he should have, but the man laughed and said no, did we want to play his friends? He said, come play three games, and if you win even one game, I will give you ten thousand rubles each. At that time it might be a hundred dollars.

It was one of those moments where you see yourself from the outside, you know? We were sitting in Max's van with the doors open, eating lunch in our room, masks on, guns around and this plankton wanted us to throw an oligarch's birthday party? The godfather stopped and immediately started licking the grease off his fingers, and the rest of us were right behind him. A little payback on the big square seemed sweet. Don't get me wrong, in Moscow we used to hold someone's place in line for five dollars an hour, so it was about money.

The guy told us to take the Go Pros off our guns and wait for him. He disappeared inside and we stood there, breath fogging the air. Max was slapping himself like before the game and saying that he was going to spend the night with the daughter of an oligarch. Kushki gave his best dying look to the hole through which the man disappeared. Vitaly and Kostya and I were debating whether we should go all out in the first game or back off and make them think they have a chance to play again. Finally the office planktons opened all their smiles, held open the gap in the fence and beckoned us inside.

The other team was lined up just on the other side, uncomfortably close. We lay down with our backs to the fence, close enough to reach out and touch them. My first impression was that they were tall and well-equipped: gray/white winter camo, Russian infantry boots, and replica spetsnaz AK-74Us. Their clothes were muddy from the game, but you could tell it was the first morning they were wearing them. They all looked alike, except for one, who stood out for wearing a pair of ripped blue rabbit ears. We all knew exactly where these came from and it pissed us off.

On the top floor of the castle there was a single room with windows that looked out over the whole field. All the walls were graffiti about communism and war and unemployment. There's been a cheap bust of Karl Marx in the empty fireplace for as long as anyone can remember, and at one point there was a pair of rabbit ears. It appeared on it. The most important rule in the big land was to never touch a rabbit's ears. This was what all the old-timers told the newbies but didn't explain. We'd say, "Don't touch the bunny ears, Scrubs," and they'd look at us like we had three heads and just laugh behind our face shields. People had to discover it themselves. It was a rite of passage.

It was hard to tell because their bodies were covered in clothing, but when the light shone the right way through the grid of their face masks, you could see that they had no faces at all - just angles of metal and plastic. The office plankton man was standing with a group of old men in real military uniforms. They were all laughing and watching the moment each of us realized we were about to play with cars.

Only Max hadn't seen it yet. He stands right in front of the machine with his ears covered and says, “You were born out of your mother's ass? Don't touch the rabbit's ears, scrub them." The thing just came up and ran its hand through the dirty cloth, like a bird spreading its wings or something. Then Max saw it too, and the office boy Plankton and his friends laughed even harder.

He gave us a chance to back out, but we told him to go to hell. Kushki asked if the machines could see in infrared or radar or anything fancy, and the man said no, they could only see in visible light like humans.

"We get by looking good, man," he said. "Why can't cars? It is cheap, reliable and low consumption."

Kushki told him to go kill yourself and we agreed to play three games of capture the flag.

We launched with a lot of confidence. This was our field and we knew it well. But I could tell we were all angry, I could hear it in my own voice. We agreed that everyone would attack the enemy's flag through the fort, except for me and Kushki, who would remain on the defensive. It was a classic big field that flagged the game for us. The horn blew to signal the start of the game and the others fled, leaving us in silence.

The outer building with our flag had four rooms and an attic. Kushki looked after the attic while I walked a circuit of the ground floor windows. After a few minutes, I heard him whisper as two of the cars passed through the forest on our left. We waited until they committed, then killed one in crossfire. He called the right call and I told him to go because I had pinned the second device, the one with the bunny ears. I crawled and suppressed it for maybe sixty seconds and then got the kill shot angle. He called the shot and raised his hand and walked off the field, staring at me the whole time. As I changed magazines, Nicky, in his referee's jacket, gave me a thumbs up from behind the machine.

I ran back to our flag room and shouted for Kushki. I heard his voice from the next room, shout "vsyo chisto!" It's clear to me I think, we've killed three enemies in just a few minutes and we're feeling pretty good. I ran out the door with my gun down and a big grin on my face and clucking! Clack clack clack I fire at point blank range from this machine standing right in front of me. Every shot was like being hit by a pencil. Outside the window, I saw Kushki a hundred feet away walking with one hand in the air. He had been shot some time ago, but his voice was coming from this room.

I called the shot and raised my hand. I was so confused that I wasn't even angry that the car would shoot me, five or six times, at point blank range. After that, I developed a bunch of bloody pimples on my arm and chest. When I went out, he took our flag and went back the way he had come. It turned out that it didn't matter - Vitaly, the godfather, Kostya and Max were all killed. We already lost

We gathered again and I told my story. Koshki said that he was shot and went out without saying a word. Vitaly said one of the devices mimicked the godfather's voice, made him look at him, and then shot him in the face.

We agreed to use only hand signals for the next two rounds.

When the horn sounded again, the four of us made a mock attack, but then went back inside the castle and waited and watched our flag building. We caught four of the cars from behind and squeezed between us and Kostya and Vitaly, who were behind with our flag. We killed all of them and did not take the injured. Now it is six to two.

We all charged straight through the castle. Max and Vitaly were one room away when I heard the gunshot and they both screamed when they were hit. A moment later I walked into the room and grabbed the device with the bunny ears looking the other way. I shot it three or four times, saw the bullets bounce off its back, then go through a door without being hit. “Call your shots!” I yelled after that. And he yelled for the referee and Nicky ducked his head in time to see the bunny ears leaning against the door and shot me.

I didn't explain, airsoft relies on the honor system. Bullets leave no marks on your clothes. If people don't call out their successes, the game doesn't work.

Damn! I shouted as I shot the device. Nikki shrugged and said she only saw me shoot. I kept screaming. Another living machine entered the room.