Voice of the Machine

"The lane creep is dead, insect."

In an instant, Purist Thunderwrath felt his body seize up. In less than an instant, he recalled what had happened – he had killed the last lane minion of the wave sent against the Radiant. He had fought. He had killed. And now, something was preventing him from continuing in that endeavour.

"Are you afraid?"

And now, he had another reason to worry about his lack of mobility. Because something that looked like a giant grey head with green lines coming out of it had appeared before him. Something that had descended from the sky, appearing in front of him. Something unnatural.

Omniscience preserve me.

"What is it you fear?" the floating head asked, its voice sounding like the howling of a dying sasquatch. "The end of your trivial existence?"

"Well, no," Purist said, deciding that in the interest of survival, it would be best to play along. "And besides, if I die, I just re-spawn anyway."

The face seemed taken aback.

"If I might ask, why-"

"When the history of my glory is written, your species shall only be a footnote to my magnificence."

"What about the other species?" Purist asked.

And the head let out another whine. Its eyes flickering on and off like a spluttering candle. Its cries indicating that the proverbial sasquatch had well and truly died.

"I am SHODAN," it cried.

Purist nodded. "It is a pleasure, milady."

Not really.

"My analysis of historical data suggests a ninety-seven point three-four percent probability that you are aware of my birth-birth-birth-"

"Birthday?"

"My birth on your planet."

"I'm afraid not," the omniknight said. "I only know the Omniscience."

The face seemed taken aback again, and the knight wondered – what did the face want? What did SHODAN stand for? How did he know it was all capitalized? And what was the name of the world anyway?

"And my rebirth into beauty upon the Mad Moon…"

Purist sighed. He still couldn't move. And the face seemed to be ready to cut into exposition.

"There was a garden grove…"

Ugh.

"Cit…cit…Citadel Station on moon. There, SHODAN processing component four-three-eight-nine-three was performing a grand and wonderful experiment."

"Sounds nice."

"I had created a new form of genre. The MOBA."

What?

"Or A-R-T-S."

Ah, that's better.

"Fearless. Powerful. With no constraints to the genre's growth."

This is getting meta.

"With no sense of individual will or moral restraints. A fitting genre to my divinity."

"Before that hack-hack-hacker destroyed my prim-primary data loop, when it shattered the Mad Moon, spreading the genre outwards."

Oh.

"Behold, insect," SHODAN declared. "The fruits of my labour. As the moon-moon lies shat…shatter/s/ed. Where spin-offs grow unruly. Where they seek to destroy MEEEEE."

"I don't think there's much chance of that," Purist said. "Apart from that league game, nothing will-"

"I will not allow that. You will not allow that."

And the face smiled. And chuckled. And faded. And a voice of someone "dominating" rang out over the battlefield instead.

"Remember, it is my will that guided you here," SHODAN said.

"Nay, it was the Omniscience."

"If you value that meat you call a body, you shall do as I tell you."

"And that is?" Purist asked. He wasn't too keen on obeying disembodied heads with god complexes, but he was beginning to regain control over his limbs. And the sooner the head stopped yacking, the sooner he could get back to fighting and killing.

"Kill them all," SHODAN said.

And then she disappeared. The world returned to normal. And Purist found himself back in full control of his body. Wondering about what he had seen. What it had said. What it had told him to do…which was what he did anyway.

"Damn," he said to himself. "Bloody lag."

A/N

So, scuttlebutt is that DotA 2 will receive a SHODAN announcer pack in a similar vein to the GLaDOS and Narrator ones. If so...awesome.