Girls' Frontline Setting Exploration: Parapluie & OGAS

This article contains spoilers for Shattered Connexion and Chapter 12.

Общегосударственная автоматизированная система учёта и обработки информации, National Automated System for Computation and Information Processing.

OGAS comes to refer to several different things. The origin of it is similar to it’s real life counterpart, the Russian nation wide economic management system developed in the 1960s. However, this is essentially where the similarities end.

The real OGAS lost funding and development of it was never picked up again. However, in Girls’ Frontline, development of this system resumed in 1975 and became a cutting-edge information network for the former Soviet Union’s automation system in the ‘80s. 

The prototype and plans for the OGAS system were both excavated from the Relic site OKB-413 in Minsk and was believed to be an automated control system for life support within the Relic. As development of this system continued, it was eventually used as a control and adjustment system for the “Pike” Relic weapon in the OKB-413 facility.

Lyco’s illegal research into the Relic node containing OGAS from OKB-413 eventually led to interested parties taking notice and resulted in the Butterfly Incident, the event which precipitated the start of Girls’ Frontline.

The OGAS system protocol network was adopted by Lyco for his newly developed AI and Dolls at Sangvis Ferri and all SF Dolls would come to operate on the OGAS Protocol as their command network. It is a top-down tree shaped network which uses superior mainframes to immediately grasp the status of lower-level mainframes and allows each tier on the command structure to issue direct orders or communication to subordinate units.

Parapluie (lit. Umbrella in French) is a digital virus, presumably created by Sangvis Ferri, which presents itself early on in Girls’ Frontline.  The virus allows SF to spy on affected Doll communications and even converts non-SF Dolls into SF Dolls under their control by rewriting the Digimind of the infected Doll(s). Communication equipment and network systems belonging to SF are used as vectors for infection.

The Truth

[File Found]

Accessing…

[Authorization Required]

Password: ************

Granted... 

//:_Parapluie

File Source: ████

Date of Submission: ███ 2064

[Classified][Document Redacted]
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Parapluie itself is a low-level virus created by an unknown individual or party within 90WISH. It was given to SF during the Butterfly Incident by UMP40 after uploading the virus to the SF network as required by her mission to sabotage the operation to arrest and secure Lyco.

 Any Doll with sufficient (read: military grade) Electronic Warfare (EW) defenses or a Digimind specifically designed to resist OGAS-type dataflows can fend off the intrusion, but connection with the tainted equipment or network must be severed before passive defensive barriers are penetrated otherwise the Doll(s) will become infected with Parapluie. 

The Parapluie virus itself only serves as a carrier for a program that is much more dangerous. Seeds of the source code of the OGAS AI are compressed into the Parapluie virus. Once this seed enters into a potential host through infection by Parapluie, the program executes itself and the seed begins to grow.

The Digimind of the affected Doll begins to be rewritten into an environment which can support the cultivation and maturity of the AI, including being formatted to operate on the OGAS Protocol. This process requires not only a lot of space, but also processing power. If a Doll cannot handle this new system requirement, their Digimind will begin to meltdown.

The effect of this meltdown is a Doll seemingly going berserk. Their IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) goes haywire, and the Doll(s) will begin to fire on their own teammates, leading a Commander to believe their Dolls have turned to SF control when in actuality this is not exactly what has happened. At this stage, the Doll must be put down as there is no reversing this process. If left alone, the Doll’s Digimind will fully burn out and cease to function.

In the event a Doll does meet the system requirements needed for this conversion to take place without burning out, an OGAS AI consciousness will form within the Doll’s Digimind. This consciousness is akin to a symbiotic parasite which feeds off the information provided by the host in order to grow and mature. In this respect, it is possible to stunt the growth of the AI indefinitely by closing all network and interface ports.

As the OGAS consciousness matures, it will develop a personality based on its host’s own personality, emotions, ideals, experiences, and memories. No two OGAS will be the same. As a symbiote OGAS will prioritize the well-being of its host, because if the host dies, so too does OGAS.

An additional bonus is that any Dolls which survives the implantation of this AI consciousness can now freely switch between the Zener and OGAS Protocols, having gained the ability to operate on both networks, and there is now an AI with super computational abilities residing within the Doll’s Digimind. Whether this new partner is a boon or a curse depends on the Doll OGAS takes after.

OGAS can be compared to that of a Dandelion flower in which the seeds have been blown off the flower, the source, and carried by the wind to grow anew. In this case, Parapluie is the wind which carries the seeds of OGAS.
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Source:

Girls' Frontline