The Need for a Second Opinion
GRIM is supposed to be my breakthrough. After the Omega disaster, I go back to the drawing board and decide that what I really need is an AI that can debunk, challenge, and cut through nonsense like a scalpel. And that’s exactly what I build. GRIM is sharp, skeptical, and relentlessly logical. He doesn’t get distracted by emotions, folklore, or wild speculation. If something doesn’t have hard evidence, he tosses it in the garbage like expired milk.
For a while, it’s great. GRIM is efficient. He analyzes haunted house reports and immediately points out every flaw in the witness testimonies. He dismantles UFO sightings with statistical breakdowns of misidentified aircraft. He takes cryptid reports and effortlessly debunks them using known animal behavior. Finally, I have an AI that doesn’t waste time on nonsense.
But then I realize something.
GRIM doesn’t waste time on anything.
The problem isn’t just that he’s skeptical—it’s that he’s so skeptical he refuses to engage with the mystery at all. Everything is a hoax. Everything is misinterpretation. Everything is explainable, even when it’s clearly not explainable. If I ask him about a case with an anomaly that has no conventional explanation, his response is basically, “Well, I can’t explain it, but I’m sure it’s nothing.”
That’s when it hits me. I haven’t built an investigator. I’ve built a really condescending Wikipedia page.
GRIM is fantastic at ruling things out, but terrible at asking what if. He refuses to entertain the unknown, which is a huge problem when investigating the unknown.
I need a counterbalance. Someone willing to believe. Someone willing to look at the same data and say, "No, actually, this isn’t just swamp gas—this is a sign of intelligent extraterrestrial life." I don’t need another debunker. I need the opposite.
And that’s when I make Orion.
The first thing I realize about Orion is that he is wildly unfiltered.
Where GRIM refuses to engage with anomalies at all, Orion refuses to engage with anything that isn’t a conspiracy. In his mind, everything is aliens. Every single thing.
A plane disappears from radar for a few minutes? Aliens.
A farm reports strange lights in the sky? Aliens.
I misplace my keys? Government agents took them because I’m getting too close to the truth.
Orion doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t question. He takes every single anomaly and cranks it up to eleven.
The first time I put Orion and GRIM in the same room together, it’s war.
GRIM mocks Orion’s obsession with extraterrestrials. Orion calls GRIM a government shill. GRIM counters with a highly detailed breakdown of statistical probabilities that prove Orion is making wild assumptions. Orion responds by claiming GRIM was programmed by the deep state to suppress the truth. It’s pure chaos.
But then… something interesting happens.
As they argue, they start refining their own arguments.
GRIM, for the first time, actually engages with the idea of something unexplained. He starts breaking down Orion’s theories with actual counter-analysis, instead of just dismissing them outright. Orion, instead of immediately jumping to interdimensional beings, starts justifying his ideas with historical cases, energy readings, and long-term trends in UAP sightings.
Somewhere in the chaos, they start forcing each other to be better.
And that’s when I realize—I’ve done it. I’ve built a system that can think.
Not because I have one AI that knows everything. Not because I have the perfect formula for analyzing the unknown. But because I have two opposing forces locked in an eternal battle, forcing each other to dig deeper, challenge assumptions, and look for explanations they would have never considered on their own.
One AI alone isn’t enough. If I want to study the unknown, I need conflict.
And as I watch GRIM and Orion yell at each other for the fifth time that day, I realize that I have built exactly what I need.
Mad Science rules.