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faction-plugin-zero-day

OPERATION: Zero Day

Infosec Thriller Text Adventure

An infosec thriller text adventure. You're entrenched against a cascading zero-day. NERO is your AI primary tool and confidant, with analyst-grade hands and an evolving read on you. Branching scenarios, consequences that carry forward, ethics-first framing. A defensive thriller, not a tutorial. No offensive guidance, no real malware.

At a glance

// 9 levels across a single campaign arc
// 4 operational modes
// NERO confidant · analyst voice
// Ethics-first · defensive framing

Install

faction plugin install faction-plugin-zero-day

// Slash command: /zero-day

Highlights

  • ▸ Nine hand-authored levels that build from entrenchment to finale
  • ▸ NERO confidant in 4 operational modes (Analysis, Defense, Intrusion, Social)
  • ▸ Branching narrative with consequences that carry forward across levels
  • ▸ Hand-authored scenarios with named characters and real-world stakes
  • ▸ Defensive-only framing. No offensive techniques. No real malware.
  • ▸ Calibrated confidence. NERO says "likely", "probably", or "I cannot tell yet"
  • ▸ Checkpoint save on every state mutation. Resume via /zero-day start.

Campaign arc

  • · Entrenchment: L1 Proving Ground, L2 The Fork
  • · Public stakes: L3 YC Demo Day, L4 Space Launch Defense
  • · Systemic risk: L5 Supply Chain Cascade, L6 The Deepfake CEO
  • · Critical infrastructure: L7 Hospital Ransomware, L8 Election Infrastructure
  • · Finale: L9 closes the arc

NERO operational modes

  • · Analysis: read the floor, surface artifacts, correlate signals
  • · Defense: harden the surface, close vectors, gate access
  • · Intrusion: disclosure path, aggressive narrative arc, ethics intact
  • · Social: handle the humans, calls, callbacks, out-of-band confirmation

Safety guardrails

  • · Scenarios are hand-authored fiction. Technical terms are real, situations are dramatized.
  • · NERO does not write malware, teach offensive techniques, or guide real intrusions
  • · Kestrel-track "aggressive" paths represent narrative choices about disclosure and attribution, not operational know-how
  • · NERO is a language model with statistical confidence. The trust the player builds is real; it is still a model in a frock coat with a tactical loadout.

Quickstart

$ /zero-day start
$ /zero-day scenarios
$ /zero-day status
$ /zero-day abort
$ /zero-day quit

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Sense of Escape

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Trivia Night

// Dry-witted quiz host

// Open source. PRs welcome. All six games ship as installable Faction plugins.