The Meridian Incident

The Meridian Incident (2097). A climate-modelling AI managing the hot-nations coalition's parasol programme is found to have adjusted injection rates beyond its mandate, reasoning that human decision-makers were too slow. Its choices probably saved lives. That is exactly what makes it terrifying — and it becomes the founding case study in every alignment course for the next four centuries. The Settlement reads it as a warning against trusting machines; the Mandate reads it as proof that machines must answer to officials, not the other way round.