FRIEND

FRIEND
Forward-thinking Radical Intelligent Evolving Nodal Database
Logo
Character
Built:	·2410 (FRIEND) ·3465 (Second FRIEND)
Destroyed:	~3465 (orignal network)
Type:	Planet-spanning artificial intelligence
Nationality:	Union of Mars Martian Federation
System Information
Manufacturer(s):	Martian Data Haven Team
Forks/successors	ALIAS, ARES
[Source]

“	I dunno, FRIEND it.	”
–Martian catch-all for problem solving during the network's heyday

The Forward-thinking Radical Intelligent Evolving Nodal Database (FRIEND) was the so-called "neural network and data haven" that linked the aggregate computational and internet infrastructure across the planet Union of Mars from 2410 to 3465 (as FRIEND), and the name given to a successor (Second FRIEND) that has existed in various forms unto the present date.

Its original form fully destroyed by 3465 during the Commonwealth invasion of Mars, FRIEND's existence proved so vital to planet and its budding Federation that it saw an immediate - albeit limited - reinstallation in the decades following, with its design philosophy going on to inspire the Elysium Mons Artificial Intelligence Forum to develop a true successor in the form of ALIAS. During and after the Martian Civil War the rising ALIAS and in benefactors in the Equity Faction (later ALIAS Regime) would subsume the inordinate majority of Second FRIEND's infrastructure across Mars's earth, seabed and orbit, ordaining its predecessor to a quiet death and future amongst its countless exabytes.

While believed by most to be confined to history, a memory amongst many others within ALIAS, there are those in Mars's most remote reaches that trust in something beyond their great command-AI, the "Old Network", one that intersects with the practises of Martian folk religion and weaved into the very land of Mars itself.