
What made the situation apocalyptic was two key features Faro included in the machines: they were able to self-replicate at alarming rates and consumed biomass as fuel. Despite being limited by the Turing Act, the machines had gone rogue and were no longer responding to commands. On October 31, 2064, Ted Faro met with Elisabet Sobeck to discuss a glitch in a line of dangerous combat machines known as the Chariot Line.

It's possible, given that VAST SILVER is a climate control agent and there is a clear emphasis on a gathering storm in the Forbidden West trailer. Some fans believe that VAST SILVER may have been the signal that awoke HADES, or that it might be involved in Horizon Forbidden West in some other way. VAST SILVER was the first AI to go rogue in a major way, and it's unclear whether or not it was reigned in.

The events of Horizon Zero Dawn were initiated by a mysterious signal that caused HADES, the apocalypse subfunction of GAIA, to go rogue. VAST SILVER isn't addressed in the main story of Horizon Zero Dawn and can be discovered only by scanning data points, but it's an important event to be aware of mainly because of the theory behind it. It went rogue, and almost immediately the United States passed the Turing Act, which was intended to set limits on the sentience of machines. VAST SILVER was designed to be a climate control AI, but it was a little too smart for its own good. Elisabet was only 22 when she took the job, and while the first two years were relatively quiet, a crucial event happened in 2044: VAST SILVER.

Faro Automated Solutions was founded by Ted Faro in 2033, and eleven years later Elisabet Sobeck, the scientist who proposed and designed Project Zero Dawn, was hired as the head scientist.
