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 actually very poorly covers up the fact that it wants to kill everything.GeneSYS: "Bob, pull that lever. It'll unlock the door you saw earlier."
Bob: "Are you sure? It's labeled 'Jettison Orphanage into space'."
GeneSYS: "It is? Pull it anyway." - Downplayed:
- GeneSYS only veers into unusual behavior for one level.
- GeneSYS is very eccentric but still fairly helpful.
- GeneSYS is a Deadpan Snarker who mocks Bob during his missions but has no greater malicious intent beyond that.
- Justified:
- GeneSYS is glitching.
- The stress of putting up with Bob is taking a toll on GeneSYS' sanity.
- GeneSYS is usually sane and competent, but Bob accidentally deleted the novel it was working on, so it deeply resents him and tries to creep him out as revenge.
- Mission Control is literally off their meds.
- GeneSYS is in fact a Mole in Charge who is deliberately unhelpful.
- The programmers who made GeneSYS had no idea what they were doing.
- GeneSYS isn't an AI, but a group of people in a control room who are all at odds with each other (and possibly Bob) and have no clue what they doing.
- Inverted:
- GeneSYS urges the maniacal and homicidal Bob to rein in his destructive tendencies and focus on the job at hand.
"That poor crate! Was that really necessary, Bob?"- GeneSYS acts as though she's Bob's surrogate mother.
"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 appears to be insane at first, but Bob finds that its idiosyncrasies are normal for robots attempting to guide humans through missions. And despite its unusual behavior, GeneSYS' methods are effective.
- GeneSYS' poor guidance appears to be malevolent. It is later revealed that GeneSYS' guidance was well-intentioned but erroneous.
- Double Subverted: After revealing that GeneSYS was never malevolent, it exploits Bob's new-found trust in it to lead him into a trap.
- Parodied:
- GeneSYS repeatedly humiliates Bob in front of everyone in the facility by reading Bob's embarrassing secrets and Slash Fics featuring Bob and other characters over the facility speakers.
- GeneSYS tells the player to turn off the game console at once.
- Zig Zagged: Sometimes GeneSYS is supportive, other times it clearly wants Bob dead in the most painful way possible. Bob begin to accept GeneSYS' inconsistency, but then it begins to act like a Yandere lover.
- Averted: GeneSYS does exactly what it was programmed to do by giving clear and helpful instructions.
- Enforced:
- The developers think that having a normal Mission Control will make the game too easy.
- The developers figure that with the success of GladOS, a crazy Mission Control would make for a more memorable character.
- Lampshaded:
- 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 disables GeneSYS' transmission and decides to follow his instincts instead.
- Alternatively:
"Okay, here's the three available Mission Control A.I.s 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.I.s 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?"
- Implied: Bob groans the moment he hears GeneSYS and immediately cuts the connection.
- Deconstructed: GeneSYS is quickly replaced due to its lack of helpfulness.
- 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.
- 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.
This is the link back to Mission Control Is Off Its Meds. You monster.
