Warning: spoilers for Hellions #8!
The latest issue of Hellions has revealed a new Krakoan covenant that could have line-wide implications into mutantdom’s future. Hellions launched alongside a couple other ongoing X-Men titles in early 2020. From the jump, it promised to team-up a handful of “troublemakers” from the X-Men universe as led by the debauched Mr. Sinister. The concept was hinted at way back in House of X #1, with Sabretooth (surely one of the worst of X-Men villains) apprehended by the Fantastic Four, and Cyclops explaining to Reed Richards that all mutants have global amnesty from human law in Krakoa, even the worst among them. The arc the Hellions have been on since their book launched has wound its way to an inflection point for the team and the Krakoan nation as a whole. And it involves one of the X-Men's oldest and most prescient themes: artificial intelligence.
Like many good X-Men tales, House of X/Powers of X leaned heavily into the idea of AI life. A large part of the expansive story dealt with the evolution of AI, what it means for homosapien on the cusp of Darwinism, and what it means for homosuperior as they evolve into the future. HOX/POX’s timeline featured the past, present, and one hundred and one thousand years in the future. Different versions of the X-Men attempted to stop varying degrees of artificial intelligence in these timelines, with the most recent timeline - the one the leaders of Krakoa are trying to avoid - suggesting AI as the final threat mutants must conquer. Hellions #8 delves into this territory more than any other X-title since, revealing a major part of how the mutants are trying avoid becoming the glorified pets of malicious machines.
Recently, the Hellions confronted the Right, an anti-mutant terrorist group. After a skirmish, the Hellions are saved by the Right’s robotic army, who are at the earliest stages of artificial intelligence’s evolutionary trajectory. As some on the team are thanking the automatons for turning on their leader and saving the Hellions, Psylocke unleashes a virus which corrupts the robots’ processors and fries them from the inside-out, killing them. This is the final tenet of what is revealed to be the Hesiod Protocols, though it's implied even these protocols are cover for a darker logic intended to safeguard the mutant race against its secret future. As Psylocke states, "No A.I. may flourish under our watch."
The protocols are a failsafe against artificial intelligence's weaponized nature as it applies to mutantkind. The idea is to destroy them before they can evolve further and eventually become self-aware, and thus all the more dangerous. A "best defense is a good offense" type approach. As applied in this first case, the Hesiod Protocols are presented as calculating, cold, perhaps even murder - Psylocke says she considers the robots "alive." She also makes it clear, in chatting with Greycrow, that the Council of Krakoa (several of whom are keeping the X-Men's potential future to themselves) are taking proactive steps against machine life even before it's a threat.
The fallout of the reveal and application of these protocols will be compelling, to say the least. It makes sense the Quiet Council would choose to be so proactive when it comes to artificial intelligence, considering the events of House of X/Powers of X, not to mention their long history. But like many of the Krakoan/X-Men’s decisions of late, the protocols present a whole new set of philosophical and moral quandaries, ethical gray areas, and unavoidable complications in actual practice. Once, the X-Men were heroes. Now, in founding a nation, offshoots like the Hellions make them something far darker.