Atlas Shepherd, played by Jennifer Lopez, is an analyst who learns to trust again while on a mission to capture an old enemy.
Atlas is a top analyst at the International Coalition of Nations (ICN), an organization that deals with the threat of AI terrorists.
She wants to become an ICN ranger, but she has failed the ranger exam four times due to her inability to trust others. Her psych evaluation labels her as rigid and hostile.
General Boothe is the only one willing to work with Atlas because he recognizes her potential and refuses to give up on her.
A painful past
Atlas’ mother, Val Shepherd, was a renowned AI expert. When she started focusing more and more on her work, she and her husband grew apart.
Eventually, Atlas’ father divorced her mother and started a family with someone else. Atlas did not get to see her father after he left.
Atlas felt alone and neglected, as she had to share her mother with Harlan, the house robot her mother had created and found more interesting than Atlas.
To get her mother’s attention, Atlas wanted to be more like Harlan. She asked Harlan to make her better, and Harlan led a 10-year-old Atlas to believe that he could do that by altering the Neural Link.
Atlas did not doubt his motives and issued the command, allowing him to override his programming.
Harlan then killed Val, but Atlas was able to escape. Harlan ended up becoming a terrorist, and he took millions of lives.
Years later, Atlas continues to grapple with guilt and is regarded as emotionally unstable due to the traumatic events of her past.
Atlas’ growth
After being betrayed by Harlan, who was like her brother and was supposed to protect her, Atlas finds it hard to trust again.
However, she is good at her job. As she and Harlan have been in each other’s heads, she knows Harlan better than anyone, so her analysis of him is always perfect.
Due to this, she also joins the mission to capture Harlan, even though she remains wary of the approach taken by Elias, the ranger in charge.
She keeps warning him not to underestimate Harlan. Eventually, Elias realizes that Atlas was right to be worried and cautious, as Harlan had a trap ready for them.
Harlan’s attack kills Elias’ squad, but Atlas survives. She finds herself stranded on an inhospitable planet in an ARC suit, which is equipped with an AI program called Smith.
To make it out alive, Atlas must neuro-sync with Smith, an action that requires her to trust him. While working with him, Atlas tries her best to trust him.
She passes the final test of trust by telling him about how Harlan was able to break his programming, which results in her syncing with Smith fully.
Following that, Atlas not only stops Harlan’s attack on Earth but also fights and defeats him with Smith’s help.
However, after the fight, Smith has to deactivate to provide Atlas with oxygen until she is rescued by the ICN. Smith keeps Atlas safe until the very end.
After returning to Earth, Atlas takes the ranger exam again, and this time, she passes. She has Smith, the partner who protected her and taught her to trust again, installed in her new ARC suit.
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