Who was right in this game?

Helios. A benevolent, immortal, incorruptible dictator is the ONLY way to fix society

Do you have a single fact to back that up?

It's two diametrically opposed AIs forcibly merged to create a single entity that would serve as Bob Page's ticket to near-omniscience.

And yet it rejected Page outright and sought a more equal merger with JC over being an egomaniac's bitch. It clearly has its own ideas about the future and right from the start they don't involve doing what it was made to do.

>>And yet it rejected Page outright
Well it helps that by their own standards, MJ12 is a terrorist group. If you want to be a good benevolent dictator, you don't get the leader of those guys to be in charge

Have to assume that when they made Icarus to consume Daedalus, it was specificly programmed to remove Daedalus' objection to MJ12 which means Helios objects to Page for a different reason

Helios is based

New Dark Age is the coolest with the music but it seems like a really bad idea.

Do you have any facts to back that up?

We don't really know why Helios objects to merging with Page, I thought he said something about Page being a megalomaniac but after looking through the script it doesn't seem it ever clarifies. It was probably written ambiguously on purpose considering several characters speculate on why Helios is doing the things it's doing. That said, I think it makes sense that it just thinks Page's unfit for the job considering at least one half of the AI thinks MJ12 is a terrorist group.

>destroying global communications just when you've developed a cure for a worldwide virus that is decimating humanity is dumb as fuck.
>Putting the organization that directly led to the rise of mj12 in charge again is dumb as fuck.
>IW shows that Helios goes off rails and tries to completely destroy independent thought and privacy.
There is no right answer.

First two are obvious within og DE.
Third one is slapped in a terrible sequel to justify doing some weird mixing of the three endings.

Wasn't it just because Page isn't ready yet?

All Helios says is "I do not wish to wait for Page". Considering JC isn't that much quicker with setting up Helios to merge with him, I doubt it's simply because it's impatient.

Bob Page

Tong's idealism is a good start but he's naive and doesn't go far enough. Sure you destroy the tools of oppression the Illuminati control in the information age but do nothing to reduce their power outside of that, you secure them a goddamn mountain of gold over the course of the game.
Illuminati ending is literally the worst for anyone but JC and anyone he feels like helping, it doesn't change anything except putting JC into one of the seats of power. The base Helios merge ending is laughably awful like some pulp sci fi tale of caution, I can't understand the people who think the solution to oppressive use of technology is an even more oppressive use of technology.

IW's JC ending is unironically the best path forward because it levels the playing field so dramatically that it becomes much harder for small groups to exert power over others. When we're all super genius Chad body nano aug god's who relay our enlightened opinions to our AI administrated online hyper democracy it's kind of hard for Debeers Rothschild Gates the third to enslave you for his private gain.

The GEP Gun

The virus is just rogue nano bots, it's not actually infectious without MJ12. A grey death cure just saves the infected, the population would bounce back without it being spread to begin with.

>thinks human society will collapse completely into barbarism and never recover because you take the internet away

Millions would starve, and millions would kill each other over food.

I used to believe the Helios ending to IW was the worst because of the same thinking as you but I've come to realise that isn't what JC/Helios was trying to do.

Essentially, JC/Helios makes nano augmentation both universal and mandatory. Eliminating any advantage/disadvantage of genetics and birth, we all get to be as smart and strong as any nano aug. On top of that we all get direct access to Helios' computing power for the purpose of democracy, we don't need representatives because we're all smart enough to make informed decisions and the AI is fast enough to tabulate consensus in real time. In other words village democracy on a planetary scale. Your freedoms would expand exponentially because of the increase in your personal ability while the possibility of people consolidating power to shackle you decreases.