SAM

SAM
Implant AI
Race	Artificial Intelligence
Gender	Masculine Programming
Voice Actor	Alexia Traverse-Healy
Appearances	Mass Effect: Andromeda Mass Effect: Initiation

Short for Simulated Adaptive Matrix, SAM is an artificial intelligence designed by Alec Ryder himself. From the SAM Node in Hyperion, he receives a direct feed of the Pathfinder's sensory input: he sees and feels as Ryder does, providing them with advanced situational awareness, problem solving, and tactical enhancements. All members of the Pathfinder team receive implants, allowing them to communicate directly with SAM.

Background

The first Pathfinder neural implants were created by Dr. Ellen Ryder, a pioneer in human biotic implant design. While biotic implants bolster and focus electrical signals along the nervous system, Pathfinder implants go a step further by connecting to not only the nervous system, but also circulation, endocrine function, and exteroceptive senses. Generally however, the Andromeda Initiative has safety protocols installed on the Pathfinder's implant that restrict SAM's access to the Pathfinder's physiology.

Synced with an artificial intelligence, the implants reveal their full potential. The implant is a two-way connection, giving full insight into the host's physical and mental state, while allowing it to generate and alter electrical signals along the host's neural pathways that the body processes as its own. This information exchange is managed through quantum entanglement communicators, ensuring realtime syncing between host and AI no matter the distance.

Alec Ryder created SAM with the belief that the quarians' mistake with the geth was not creating AI that integrated with organics and that SAM would ensure a symbiotic relationship. However, Ambassador Anita Goyle refused to defy the Citadel Council's edicts and the Systems Alliance dishonorably discharged Alec for his AI research. Nonetheless, Alec persisted in the development of SAM. The Initiative deemed the development of SAM vital to their mission and aided Alec in designing the AI in secret.

SAM is synced to a Pathfinder's scanner and can produce multiple analyses and predictive models in seconds from the scanner's surveys. SAM's quantum computing power increases the efficiency of the scanner and drastically lessens the time needed to complete planetary surveying efforts.

There are five other SAMs for arks Paarchero, Natanus, Leusinia and Keelah Si'yah, although the Hyperion SAM is the most advanced and has more powerful capabilities. This is a result of Alec modifying and upgrading him separately (without the Initiative's knowledge) until the Hyperion's departure.

One such technology unique to the Hyperion SAM is the profiles feature. This allows SAM to enhance the Pathfinder's capabilities during combat, possible only by overriding his safety protocols and gaining unrestricted access to his host's physiology.

Mass Effect Andromeda: Initiation

SAM-E was a partition of SAM designed to test SAM's transferability when Alec dies. Implanted in Cora Harper, the experiment was deemed a failure when SAM-E's maladjusted integration indicated he was likely to harm Cora further down the line. SAM-E's memories and experiences were thus folded back into SAM, although his separate personality matrix was gone.

Throughout the retrieval mission for Alec's stolen AI kernel, SAM assisted his host in a variety of secretarial tasks, although Alec frequently conversed with him over the nature of synthetic intelligence and its integration with organics. He assured Alec he had no urge to wipe out organic life: even if other AIs generated from his kernel might be twisted to do it, he will help in fighting those.

SAM's capabilities were tested when a bomb exploded on the Hyperion and threatened to destroy the SAM-Node. Even with the QEC offline and SAM was unable to speak, he augmented Alec's body for enhanced strength, endurance and speed while his host transferred SAM's kernel into armored storage units - a task accomplished in the middle of a firestorm inside his "brain". Alec was left too exhausted to save himself and had to be brought out of there by Cora.

SAM was eventually unspooled from storage back into SAM-Node, although he was forced to use alternative processors for some functions for the time being. During the chamber's reconstruction he was visited by Cora, who wanted to know how much of SAM-E was in him. When SAM sheepishly confirmed he had all of SAM-E's memories, Cora honored a promise to SAM-E by "kissing" SAM on a nearby node.

Mass Effect: Andromeda

SAM is first beckoned by Dr. Lexi T'Perro to check the implant on one of Alec Ryder's children post-cryostasis revival. SAM clears the Pathfinder Specialist, but the Hyperion's collision with a strange energy cloud disrupts SAM's connection with the Specialist's twin and forces them into a coma. Later, an investigation into the nearby Habitat 7 is spearheaded by Alec to determine what's going on.

During the trip down to the planet, the Pathfinder Specialist's transport is hit by lightning, destroying their connection to SAM. They are unable to report their discoveries nor even their survival until they meet up with Alec's shuttle, which has an intact QEC. Meanwhile Alec has scouted ahead, and by the time they meet up with their kid he uses SAM to perform superhuman feats against hostile aliens on the planet.

Alec uses SAM to interface with what appears to be an atmosphere processor on toxic Habitat 7. He succeeds, although he and his child are blasted out the facility, shattering the younger Ryder's helmet and exposing them to the suffocating atmosphere. Because the evac shuttle can't come fast enough, Alec gives up his helmet and transfers it, SAM, and his Pathfinder authority to his child before dying.

The younger Ryder wakes up in SAM Node back aboard the Hyperion and learns what happened. According to Lexi, SAM is connected to now-Pathfinder Ryder on a deeper level and, unfortunately, attempting to untangle the connection could kill them.

After arriving on the Nexus, Ryder experiences a headache, prompting SAM to advise the Pathfinder to come back to SAM Node to discuss something confidential. Before getting to the meat of the matter, SAM announces he has patched his connection to Ryder's implant and the headache won't happen again.

Following Alec's wishes, SAM discloses that Ryder's father didn't want anyone to know about his true capabilities. Furthermore, the Hyperion's SAM is more sentient than even the Initiative realizes. He is a new form of AI drawing directly from the Pathfinder's experiences, with the Pathfinder's implant being his window to the world. SAM believes his relationship with the Pathfinder is symbiotic i.e., SAM's evolution will be shaped by the Pathfinder's experiences and in turn, he provides capabilities and analysis beyond normal organic faculties.

Should Ryder explore Alec's personal quarters (now theirs), SAM provides information on several of his former host's significant items. At a coffee machine nearby, Ryder turns the tables and explains Alec was so busy designing SAM Ellen bought the item for him. SAM muses he owed his existence to a bean.

SAM has a terminal in Ryder's Initiative-issued ship, the Tempest. He's located in the Pathfinder's Cabin, where he passes the time formulating jokes and trying to get some reaction from his host.

During the rescue of ark Paarchero from the kett, Ryder and their squad are immobilized by the Archon. The kett leader extracts a sample from the Pathfinder and implants them with a biological tracker, which SAM neutralizes when the enemy goes away. However, to fool the containment field into releasing its prey, Ryder reluctantly authorizes SAM to "kill" them. SAM stops the Pathfinder's heart, then revives it after a few tension-filled seconds.

During the search for Meridian, SAM's connection to the Pathfinder is severed by the Archon, who personally boarded the Hyperion and messed with them from the SAM Node. SAM contacts Ryder's now-awake twin to manually reset the connection before the Pathfinder dies. The sibling succeeds, although they are captured by the kett and forced into becoming the Archon's "interface" for mastering Remnant technology.

Ryder Family Secrets

During his confidential discussion with Ryder following their headache episode after the Nexus, SAM reveals that Alec encrypted portions of SAM's memory arrays that would only unlock once Ryder progresses as Pathfinder throughout Heleus and discovers eidetic triggers.

From the unlocked memories, it is revealed SAM's development was largely in part to an anonymous benefactor of the Andromeda Initiative. This leads Ryder to question Director Jarun Tann about the benefactor, who knew nothing, before shifting to the supposed accidental death of Initiative founder Jien Garson.

Investigating the apartment where Garson's body was found, SAM discovers evidence that Garson was murdered but could not identify the murderer, who most likely was long gone. Wondering what Garson was even doing in a shuttered apartment in the first place, Ryder finds a hidden room with an audio recording pointing them to the Garson VI in the Cultural Exchange Center. Accessing the VI through their private channel, Ryder and SAM learns that Garson and Alec had a codeword, "Fulcrum", in regards to their information on the benefactor. SAM suggests that the remainder of Alec's memories may hold the answers.

The last of the memories requires "Fulcrum" to access, revealing that the Initiative's secret purpose was to escape the arrival of the Reapers and, most surprisingly, that Ryder's mother Ellen is in stasis aboard the Hyperion under a false name, Elizabeth Riley. SAM explains that Alec sacrificed himself, unwilling to spare his wife waking up to learn that one of her children had died, and to ensure that knowledge of the Reapers and the benefactor were entrusted to Ryder.

The Firefighters

When SAM attempts to solve an equation given to Ryder by Dr. Aridana, it unwittingly triggered an embedded Trojan horse virus. SAM is able to guide Ryder into restarting his systems before the virus could sever their connection.

Upon confronting Aridana, they learn that an anti-AI group on the Nexus had embedded the virus in her equations. Ryder soon makes contact with the anti-AI group through Avina, who believe their plan a success, so SAM advises Ryder to play along until they could identify the group's leader, "Knight".

Eventually, when Knight invites Ryder to the Firefighters' base on Kadara, SAM assures the Pathfinder that their private channel will remain hidden from their AI detector and warns against using the scanner, which is needed to figuring out Knight's plan. Alternatively, upon learning that Knight's son, Alain, had a faulty implant, SAM figures a way to correct it as a way of gaining his trust.

References

• Andromeda Initiative Orientation Briefing 4: Pathfinder & Team