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Overview

Evolve or die. Make your choice.

— ARIA's intro quote

ARIA, an abbreviation standing for "Advanced Robotics Intelligence Architecture", is a new character introduced in the Season Two of Killer Instinct (2013). An artificial superintelligence created by Ultratech's founder, Ryat Adams, ARIA was designed to direct the evolution of the human species and ensure its long-term survival. The AI has since taken full control of Ultratech as its CEO, and mysteriously alternates between an antagonist to the human heroes and a foil to the demonic forces of Gargos.

ARIA was first teased in Season One's arcade mode's secret ending, in which she addresses the player directly after they defeat Shadow Jago. ARIA is the game's 17th playable character, and was the 9th and final character added in Season Two.

Biography[]

Appearance[]

In her very first appearance, ARIA is shown as a vague, feminine silhouette with piercing white eyes and a slightly blue color scheme. Her design had not yet been finalized during Season One, and this silhouette was used as a placeholder.

ARIA's later official appearance is very different. Her default appearance when she not using her "drone" attachments is fairly simple: she retains her feminine figure, having a thin waist and wide hips & shoulders, and stands quite tall. Her entire body is composed of golden and light grey shades of metal, with small gaps where cyan light shines out. Extending from the back of her head are dreadlock-like strips of metal, and she has large jagged shoulderpads. She has clawed hands and high-heeled feet, and regal cloth coattails that reach mid-calf. Inside of her knees are shotguns, and in her calves are grenade launchers. She has three different forms: each an extension of a "drone" she can upload her intelligence into: the "booster drone", the "blade drone", and the "brass drone". The "booster drone" resembles a pair of mechanical wings, and when ARIA attaches this drone to her back the wings expand, segmenting out in strips. The "blade drone" is a large and sword-like appendage which attaches to the underside of ARIA's arm, giving her a blade extension. The "brass drone" is a large piece of ambiguous mechanical equipment that attaches to ARIA's chest, and which opens up to reveal a sonic cannon inside.

ARIA's retro costume appears to be the robotic frame she resided in while still in prototype stage. This prototype frame is composed of silver and black metal, with green lights visible in her hands and abdomen.

Personality[]

You cannot fight the future.

— ARIA's story mode description

Image (12)

Savior or destroyer?

As the world's first artificial superintelligence, ARIA is, for lack of better terms, a uniquely sophisticated and multilayered "individual." Her perspective on the universe is rigorously logical and immeasurably complex, and will rarely take into account human morals and ethics when exercising judgment or executing decisions. She is unable to experience emotion, which she fully realizes, but in spite of this (or perhaps precisely because of it) ARIA deems herself vastly superior to human beings—and not without reason. However, she wishes to "feel" human emotions firsthand and is actively seeking out methods through which to correctly synthesize their approximation.

ARIA's self-proclaimed supreme excellence causes her to approach humanity as wholly inferior to herself (again not without reason), which directly ties into her primary objective: she judges human beings to be frail and complacent in their present state, and is laboring to shape environmental conditions that will again force modern humans to confront evolutionary pressure head-on. It is in her core programming to uplift the human genome with the aim of ensuring its long-term survival in a hostile universe, yet her questionable methods often appear to shake the balance of the entire world.

While the objective of the successful uplifting of the human species is ingrained deeply into the fabric of her essence, ARIA also seems to pursue it out of a peculiar sense of respect for her deceased creator and one-time mentor, Ryat Adams — a genius industrialist and philanthropist whom the AI seems to regard as a literal father figure.

Abilities[]

ARIA's entire robotic frame is composed of three different drone attachments: the "booster," "blade," and "bass" drones.

More information to be added...

Killer Instinct (2013)[]

Aria Wallpaper 1920x1080-1

ARIA's debut in Season Two of Killer Instinct (2013)

Story[]

ARIA began life as a simulation of… life. Utilizing radically new processing technologies and other technological insight gleaned from a government incident in 1947, the Ultrafine Atomic Technologies Company (founded in 1948) performed research into the simulation of life and human frailty within a computational matrix. The core program ARIA was born of the desire to uplift the human race; to end disease, famine, poverty and push humanity out of what was seen as the primordial muck and mire it wallowed in. This work took on greater and greater meaning for its founder, industrialist Ryat Adams, as his wife was dying of a degenerative disease and he desperately sought a cure for her condition.

Over time, Ryat and the UATC continued to refine and enhance its ARIA humanity simulation program, assigning it more and more complex simulations of the human condition as its capabilities continued to grow and more tech from the government source was understood and exploited. Years passed, and when Ryat finally died, his will included instructions to continually allow ARIA to run her programming as she searched for the solutions to human frailties.

Extended Story []

Evolve or Die

Main article: Evolve or Die

Chapter 5 — ARIA for Noömorph

Main article: ARIA for Noömorph

Chapter 6 — Shadows at Dawn

Main article: Shadows at Dawn

Stage[]

Main article: The Pinnacle
Aria-bright

ARIA's background stage, The Pinnacle, in KI 2013

During an Ultra Combo, the rooftop starts to collapse causing every glasses in the room to be shattered everywhere, two Prototype Fulgores will vanish out of harm's way, and a metallic debris would crash down from the roof into the background.

Stage ULTRA - KNOCKOFF: During an Ultra Combo, the victor would send their opponent flying through the window, then the defeated opponent would fall to their demise towards the UltraTech skylight below, which explodes on impact.

Gallery[]

Killer Instinct (2013)

Killer Instinct "Dynamite" Comics (2017)

Quotes[]

You have shown fierce resolve to defeat every adversary, but have also revealed a vulnerability. I, ARIA, know everywhere you are weak, everywhere you are blind, everywhere you are defenseless, and Ultratech shall be the agent of your destruction.

— ARIA, Season One Arcade Mode secret ending

If only they knew what waited for them. Humans transformed into monsters, spirits, ancient creatures and immortal madmen, aliens from beyond our solar system, and now primeval horrors looking to devour them. Despite my efforts, humanity grows weak and complacent while their successors gather all around them. My prediction models show that they will not survive—I cannot allow that. I will put them back on the path. I will test them, push them, and I will not be gentle. It is time for a reckoning. Humanity will be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the future.

Evolve or die. The choice is yours.

— ARIA's trailer, also quoted in her backstory

My prediction models suggested this confrontation was inevitable. Still, the cost-value analysis of the Fulgore MK-03 suggested it would be worth the expense. Do you not agree?

— ARIA's response to Thunder's demand for retribution

I see now that my greatest error has been to underestimate the self-destructive nature of the human race.

— A godlike intellect (acridly) concedes not even its most refined prediction models can vaticinate human behavior (Shadow Lords dialogue)

The world cannot rely on you.

— ARIA's victory quote

Unworthy.

— ARIA's combat taunt

Trivia[]

Aria102484-hi

"But most of all I wanted to look powerful—like one of the Valkyries."

ARIA's backstory for Killer Instinct (2013), titled "Evolve or Die", mentions that the artificial superintelligence likens its purpose and function to that of a Valkyrie: demi-goddesses from Norse mythology who fly invisibly over places of conflict, judge who will die and who may live, and who were said to become as lovers to the heroes they've chosen.

  • Her retro skins are homages to various sci-fi robots from popular culture, such as RoboCop's body, the head of a Cyberman from Doctor Who, and F91 Gundam F91's wings.
    • Her HoloArmor Accessories are modeled on female robots painted by Japanese illustrator Hajime Sorayama.

External Links[]

Media[]

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