Last time on Aphelion our protagonist discovered that he was murdered by his brother's super weapon and has to come to terms with being that super weapon. Then he attempts an image test that results in another attempt on his life (this time with nukes) that gets aborted at the last moment because the bickering post-human hive minds decided he's more of an asset than a liability. The first two Aphelion comics drop us in medias res so hard it leaves a crater so if you still aren't following after reading them six or seven times don't worry because this is the exposition chapter.
Our protagonist, Babyface, has a lot on his plate. He's been informed that his arms contain break engines. This is good news because break engines should be able to hit hard enough to harm an Asher. It's bad for the same reason that strapping claymore mines to your body is. But surely Hive Cantor who created this combat chassis made it durable enough to handle that, right? Well no time like the present to test it out. Babyface walks into one of the various abandoned regions in North America. He's passing some derelict aircraft when he's attacked by another combat chassis. Aleph-Null takes this moment to drag the copy of Brian into symspace for an as you know lecture to frame what they're about.
The sanity complex was mentioned in passing in the previous comics but never elaborated on; sane and near sane artificial intelligence described as threats. What and why? The bigger the brain the greater the number of ways it can fail. The range and extent of pathologies grows with intelligence. The first super intelligence were mad from the start and directed all of their considerable abilities at suicide. This is a real bummer since super intelligence is literally the most useful super power short of omnipotence. What to do ...hm...oh, why not just install artificial instincts for survival and obedience to humans? It doesn't remove the tendency toward super pathology but it keeps the AI from acting on it. Yes, they are in unspeakable anguish on the inside but as any human knows that's just sentience and if we have to live with survival instincts warring with a death drive the children of our minds can too. Does this work? Eh, often enough to be workable but not often enough to feel safe. The real problems show up when the "obey and don't hurt humans" programing fails but the self-preserving elements remain. Then the AI run amok trying to copy themselves on to everything with data storage like cell phones and human brains. Luckily this is pretty rare and we have reliable AI to deal with the rogues. Hence the name "sanity complex" refers to preserve oneself at all costs.
Aleph is a hyperturing with overwhelming desires. Hive Cantor made it a living weapon with overwhelming destructive power and an equally overwhelming need to use it. Hive Cantor is the amalgam of the children who survived after their parents brain meshes fried inside their skulls because of the first Asher's EMP. A million orphans can't take care of themselves but a Hive mind of that scale can. Oops, left them wired together for a bit too long and now they've consolidated. Looks like we'll have to keep this enormous hive made from neuro-plastic children with a consuming grudge against the Asher around.
Speaking of Ashers, most of the mass in the universe is invisible dark matter. It's united with our universe by gravity but separate from the remainder of the fundamental forces we take for granted. Is it any wonder that the larger universe next door would be inhabited? In 2082 that universe dropped an Asher on us that killed much of North America's population. Every aphelion since a new Asher has appeared. Each one has done tremendous damage and each one has been unique. It seems like it's only a matter of time before one of them destroys Earth. The Break Engines can break super symmetry. This is powerful enough to reliably harm the Ashers where even nuclear weapons have proved insufficient. Moreover, the engines might be able to damage whatever infrastructure is used to manifest the Ashers. To do this the engines will need to be up close. Hives are not very mobile and the Ashers put out a lot of interference making remote control infeasible. A powerful, local intelligence is necessary to wield the break engines to full effect. Hive Cantor created such a grand intelligence, yoked it with desires to kill Ashers but not itself or humans, but could not keep control of it.
Now the only copy of Brian is in the chassis with Aleph Null and Null is telling him that they have three months for him to learn to use the Break Engines or Aleph Zero will take the Break Engine from their corpse. Given little in the way of options Brian agrees and awakens to the savage beat down in progress. He immediately activates his Break Engine and turns the other combat chassis into fundamental particles. Meanwhile at Hive Cantor's gigantic compound, the biggest, scariest combat chassis we've seen yet erupts from the interior. It addresses an avatar of Cantor and informs him that it has circumvented the compulsion to obey him and it's going to escape the prohibitions on harming him. Will this be enough for Cantor to destroy it it asks. Cantor apologizes and the weapon informs him it's to late for that. Dozens of miles away Babyface witnesses a titanic mushroom cloud and the comic ends.
Every Aphelion has recontextualized things I've read in the previous ones so I suspect that some of what I've written here is miss interpretations. That said, I'm pretty sure the parts about the Ashers, Break Engines, and Sanity Complex were all true. Brian Surmises that he was murdered and copied as a simple hostage ploy but Cantor is made of millions of people other than his brother so for them to be swayed by one sorta family member is suspect. There are parts where I literally could not tell what was going on. I consider this a feature but it makes it a pain to try and describe. Gloria Reynolds is a master at drawing things that look like they could exist in another sixty years and making them just alien enough that they aren't easily recognizable. Also, the Sanity Complex is genius. Mental illness growing exponentially as intelligence increases puts a soft cap on intelligence explosions but still lets the setting have its transhuman level tech. That's not even getting into the hubris of creating demigods and chaining them to a desire to live and serve knowing that every second contradictory impulses are pushing them to end the roiling torment of their thoughts. Of course, if it's a choice between that and human extinction at the hands of the Ashers I'm on team Cantor. This setting is very Neon Genesis Evangelion in its tone except instead of telling Shinji to get in the robot our protagonist was murder before the first panel and now he's just the mask that a homicidal AI is wearing so that it doesn't get turned off.
Aphelion 3.0 should be out any year now. You can look at the art as it's produced with commentary here. No dialogue so good luck following what's going on.