MINERVA
One of GAIA’s detached subordinate functions, MINERVA’s primary goals were to crack the encryption on the control codes for the FARO Swarm and to broadcast the shutdown sequence with those codes. Canonically, while it is never expressly confirmed that this happened, it’s heavily implied via the Meridian Spire and the deactivated FARO machines.
The Meridian Spire
A transmission tower for MINERVA that became the centerpiece of Carja lands, the Spire is not quite as tall as some of the mountains in the area, but it’s close. Its height gives a clue to how many similar towers might populate the surface. While the Meridian Spire is the only one of its kind in HZD, we can safely assume they dot the landscape with several hundred miles between them.
The Meridian Spire featured in HADES’ plan to broadcast the reactivation codes to the FARO Swarm, to have the machines reset the biosphere back to an undifferentiated state. The reactivation codes were sent, and some FARO war machines did briefly return to service, but a quick response from Aloy overrode the transmission, reverting the machines to their dormant state.
Missing Towers
It might be interesting to consider what might have happened if MINERVA’s towers had not adequately blanketed the surface of the Earth. Adventurers might come across an area where FARO Swarm war machines were dormant due to low fuel, not because they had received the deactivation signal. Reintroduction on biomatter into that area might have an interesting effect on the machines in that area, especially if one presumes the surrounding towers stopped transmitting the deactivation codes long ago.
MINERVA in Skyline
Extrapolating a bit for Skyline, MINERVA is the AI for communication, and it is implied that the Focus network is run atop the communications infrastructure established for MINERVA’s purposes. MINERVA is also narratively interesting, as its canon job had been completed for hundreds of years when the mysterious signal and virus affected GAIA and the other AIs. How would that virus have affected MINERVA differently from the other AIs if it had been dormant, and effectively offline, at the time of that event?
The MINERVA AI plays a part in the Connection story module.