Sunil Cariappa

Sunil Cariappa (born June 2nd 2001) is an Indo-Canadian climate epidemiologist, public health physician, and data scientist who is credited with the discovery of Cariappa-Muren disease (CMD) along with Connie Muren.

Born in Dharwad, India, Cariappa’s family moved to Toronto, Canada in 2004. He obtained a degree in Epidemiology from the University of Ottawa in 2026 and started working as a research analyst for the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) in 2028.

In 2038, Cariappa first identified piscine transmissible amyloidotic encephalopathy (PTAE) after his cat became infected, which led to the discovery of CMD in 2039. He played a pivotal role in the international response to the CMD pandemic and the later description of CMD phobia.

Cariappa’s experience with the CMD pandemic and the response to it, which he summarised in a widely quoted report, resulted in his cooperation with Zhupao on the early stages of the G6 project, which was partly based on Cariappa’s biosecurity work for the PHAC and the World Health Organisation (WHO). In 2040, Cariappa distanced himself from the project, believing that it had drifted too far from its original design goals.

In 2045, Cariappa founded Nuance and currently serves as the company’s chief technology officer (CTO). On October 8th 2049, Cariappa was reported missing, with his whereabouts unaccounted for since September 17th 2049.

Early life and educationPermalink

Sunil Cariappa was born on June 2nd 2001 in Dharwad, Karnataka, India. He is the third child in a family of two sons and two daughters born to Nadikerianda Poovayya Cariappa, who worked for the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) of Dharwad, and Vijayamma Jayashree. His parents met when they were both disciples of Sathya Sai Baba. They fled his cult together in 1994 and openly spoke out against him.

In 2004, Cariappa’s parents left India after suffering a decade of prosecution and harassment due to Sai Baba’s connections with government officials and state police. The family moved to Toronto, Canada, where Cariappa’s father found a job as a consultant for the Canada-India Business Council (C-IBC) and his mother’s paintings were eventually exhibited at major public galleries and museums.

Cariappa initially wanted to become a doctor, but became fascinated with the field of epidemiology after seeing Contagion. His mother claims he watched the film “once or twice a day for a month.” In 2019, Cariappa was accepted to McGill University on an entrance scholarship and completed his undergraduate degree as a Doctor of Medicine. In 2026, he graduated as a Master of Science in Epidemiology at the University of Ottawa.

CareerPermalink

From 2026 to 2027, Cariappa served as a representative on the Committee on Health Policy and Economics of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA). In March 2028, Cariappa began to work as a research analyst for the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). His focus was to apply the effects of anthropogenic climate change to disease outbreak models and simulations, eventually making him one of the foremost contributors to the field of climate epidemiology. He also designed several biosecurity systems for neurological disorders and a networking platform for the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN).

In 2033, Cariappa became acting Head of Knowledge Development and Research for the PHAC and held the temporary position for eight months, after which it was made official. In this capacity, he led two working groups, supervised three research analysts, issued correspondence on matters related to community-associated infections, and chaired the planning committee for a symposium on waterborne diseases in Quebec City.

In 2036, Cariappa worked with the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the investigation of a clustered outbreak of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) that had claimed over 400 lives in several states and former territories of the United States (US). ^[1] CDC officers had initially attributed the outbreak’s higher rate of infection to increased flooding and the continental super summer, but Cariappa’s research indicated that the outbreak was linked to Pasteuria ramosa-infected water fleas serving as a novel food source for Naegleria fowleri, the causative agent of PAM. ^[2] [3]

This marked the first of numerous occasions where Cariappa and his working groups at the PHAC coordinated with the CDC, which had been chronically underfunded, understaffed, and isolated from public health agencies in other countries. Cariappa was later offered a permanent position at the CDC, but he did not want to leave the PHAC and accepted a role as liaison officer between the two agencies.

Discovery of CMDPermalink

First indicationPermalink

In October 2038, Cariappa’s spouse noticed that their cat, a ten-year-old Maltese named Captain Thunderpaw, was showing unusual aggression. In the following days and weeks, Captain Thunderpaw began to exhibit additional symptoms, progressing from further uncharacteristic behaviour, increased sensitivity, and excessive drooling to gait abnormalities, sleepiness, and convulsions. A veterinarian diagnosed Captain Thunderpaw with ataxia, possibly due to an underlying neurological condition, but in spite of the prescribed medications, he died two weeks later.

Cariappa sensed there was more to Captain Thunderpaw’s illness and used the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) to mine social media for any mention of similar cases. He found an upward trend in reports and descriptions of domestic cats exhibiting unusual behaviour followed by progressive immobility and death, which were variously diagnosed as Addison’s disease, epilepsy, hypoglycemia, and different types of ataxia.

Suspecting an outbreak of food poisoning, Cariappa arranged for PHAC and CDC field epidemiologists to coordinate a preliminary investigation, including a series of necropsies on some of the recently deceased animals in Canadian and US cities. Over half of the necropsies revealed the presence of amyloid aggregates in the nervous tissue, which is a hallmark symptom of feline spongiform encephalopathy (FSE). However, most reports of the cat deaths described a much faster progression of the clinical stage and none of the positive necropsy samples displayed any FSE-specific spongiosis.

Cariappa believed that the epizootic in cats was the result of a novel prion agent that was being spread through contaminated cat food, but available GPHIN data and interviews with pet parents yielded no common brand or meat product between confirmed cases. When Cariappa broadened his search to include other types of food generally fed to cats, he discovered that all FSE-positive samples belonged to deceased cats that had been fed Lassgard tuna. This also accounted for Captain Thunderpaw, who had occasionally been offered Lassgard tuna as a special treat.

Description of PTAEPermalink

Fearing that the novel prion agent was spreading to people as well, Cariappa searched for any reports of atypical variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), eventually finding an article co-authored by Connie Muren and Gerhard Kobl-Thissen on the case of WedgeWoo, who had been diagnosed with a novel prion infection initially thought to be vCJD. ^[4]

Since the article specifically mentioned rapid neurodegeneration and a lack of spongiosis in WedgeWoo’s symptomatology, Cariappa reached out to Muren and suggested that there was a link between the epizootic in cats and her diagnosis of WedgeWoo, whom he now believed to be the index case of a foodborne disease outbreak spread through Lassgard tuna. After a few days of coordinating activities remotely, Muren asked Cariappa to visit her at the University of Düsseldorf, which had agreed to cover his travel and accommodation expenses under the guise of bringing in a guest lecturer.

On December 5th 2038, Cariappa travelled to Düsseldorf and met with Muren. While she had samples of Lassgard tuna delivered for analysis, Cariappa worked out various epidemiological scenarios and responses. With only limited data available, he based his models on established research into previous bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) epidemics and distribution figures of Lassgard tuna. At the time, Cariappa’s primary concern was the scale of the outbreak, since Lassgard Bioteknik‘s product secrecy made it impossible to say whether the company’s line of tuna had been infected with a prion agent during one, several, or all of its successive aquaculture cycles.

By January 2039, Muren had determined that a significant proportion of brain samples gathered from Lassgard tuna showed plaque-like deposits, indicating the presence of advanced amyloidosis. Although there was some debate regarding its origin, Cariappa and Muren jointly described this amyloidosis as piscine transmissible amyloidotic encephalopathy (PTAE).

Smear campaignPermalink

On January 13th 2039, Muren sent a report on PTAE to the Global Foodborne Infections Network (GFN) of the World Health Organisation (WHO). Despite Muren’s request to keep the report internal, GFN officials reacted by reaching out to Lassgard Bioteknik regarding a possible contaminant in its tuna stock, which prompted the company to start a harassment and misinformation campaign against the WHO. As a result, the WHO limited its response by exploiting PTAE’s foodborne origin to convene an Outbreak Control Team (OCT) instead of starting an official investigation, which Cariappa condemned as “tantamount to inaction.”

Lassgard Bioteknik’s awareness of the report also made Cariappa a target of abuse from William Lassgard, who questioned Cariappa’s character and scientific credentials, and made baseless accusations of sexual abuse against Cariappa’s parents because of their past association with Sai Baba. On February 25th 2039, Cariappa suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of Lassgard’s abuse and was hospitalised, eventually returning to Toronto for treatment. Lassgard issued an apology after the news of Cariappa’s breakdown was leaked to the media, but continued to refute the claims that Lassgard tuna was responsible for any kind of food poisoning.

In Toronto, Cariappa consented to a medical colloid to help him with his recovery via neurostimulation and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). He had been wary of having a colloid implanted, but was convinced after talking with his partner and Muren. Cariappa reportedly found the therapeutic effects so striking that he had an additional colloid configured to mitigate his anxiety, which allowed him to return to Düsseldorf in April 2039 and rejoin the OCT. While Muren ran a study to confirm PTAE’s transmission potential to humans, Cariappa conducted surveys through GPHIN, which uncovered five additional cases with a pathology similar to that of WedgeWoo.

Role in outbreak controlPermalink

By July 2039, Muren had demonstrated that transgenic mice modified to produce human proteins and infected with brain material from Lassgard tuna could develop a prion disease similar to vCJD. Cariappa and Muren prepared a report on the disease, which they described as acquired prionopathic neurodegeneration syndrome (APNS), and submitted it to the WHO. ^[5] This resulted in the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the WHO, which significantly expanded the OCT’s scope. With its membership raised from four to 27, the OCT held a meeting on July 30th 2039 to select a chair. Cariappa was put forward as the most suitable candidate, but he privately confided to Muren that he felt uncomfortable with that kind of spotlight, and she offered to step in as OCT chair in his stead.

As the OCT was now comprised of members from four different health and food agencies as well as GFN and university officials, the first days of the team’s activities were marked by inefficient reporting and clashes over research and data gathering methodologies. When a miscommunication led to APNS being prematurely issued to the media under the eponymous name Cariappa-Muren disease (CMD), which became the disease’s official name before it could be retracted, Cariappa implemented common systems and formats for keeping reliable records, action notes, communication guidelines, and conducting epidemiological and laboratory investigations.

While Cariappa’s efforts helped with streamlining the OCT’s activities, the WHO was met with increased opposition from Lassgard Bioteknik and other Big Fish companies. This included lawsuits to obtain Cariappa’s private correspondence, lobbying efforts against any attempts to halt the sale of Lassgard tuna, and the funding of research that declared farmed fish in general and Lassgard tuna specifically as safe for human consumption.

In October 2039, the OCT was given access to a leaked data cache of internal Lassgard Bioteknik correspondence via Anse Daems on behalf of World News Wire (WNW). After reviewing the files, Muren was able to conclusively determine that Lassgard tuna was contaminated with BSE-infected fish meal, which had been continuously used as a feed stock since the tuna’s first aquaculture cycle was started in 2031. When Cariappa applied the OCT’s epidemiological models to Lassgard tuna product tracking data and CMD-specific susceptibility rates, he estimated that the outbreak of CMD would result in approximately three million infected worldwide.

On October 23rd 2039, WNW began running a series of investigative articles that exposed Lassgard Bioteknik’s malpractice based on the data leak and the OCT’s work. Cariappa experienced a sudden increase in media attention after the WHO classified CMD as a pandemic and issued a global alert on October 25th 2039.

Description of CMD phobiaPermalink

Data discrepancyPermalink

In December 2039, Muren asked Cariappa to assume her liaison duties concerning the WHO’s global alert and response activities. While she officially stayed on as chair, she preferred to continue her work on CMD and PTAE at the University of Düsseldorf. Cariappa proceeded to coordinate with the WHO’s Emergency Committee and GOARN to distribute information packets and diagnostic colloids to physicians and hospitals in countries with reported cases of CMD. The information packets included instructions for logging all positive CMD diagnoses with GOARN, allowing the OCT to gather more precise epidemiological data.

After using GPHIN to monitor all unofficial medical reports of CMD infections, Cariappa noticed a discrepancy between these reports and the number of positive diagnoses logged with GOARN. Even when taking into account the lack of information coming out of China, which was refusing all cooperation with the WHO, the amount of unofficially sourced CMD infections quickly eclipsed the OCT’s epidemiological models, with a peak of 30 million cases on December 20th 2039. When the unofficial total subsequently began to taper off, Cariappa was able to map an inverse correlation between the decrease in unofficial CMD infections and the increased availability of diagnostic colloids, which were considered to be the most reliable and accurate diagnosis method for CMD.

Cariappa attributed this correlation to an illness anxiety disorder after a related GPHIN search suggested that people were excessively and unduly worried about being infected with CMD, experienced psychosomatic symptoms, and sought medical assistance. This pervasive anxiety was contaminating records of doctor’s visits and hospital admissions with false positives, which were redacted as the steady distribution of colloids allowed for more conclusive diagnoses.

After writing a report about the CMD-specific anxiety disorder, which would later become known as CMD phobia, Cariappa issued a recommendation for updated communication guidelines to the WHO’s Emergency Committee. The new guidelines advised health communicators to emphasise the low likelihood of contracting CMD and avoid the use of severe-sounding and loaded terms such as pandemic, infection, or spread. In January 2040, Cariappa’s updated guidelines were rescinded by then-WHO Director-General Yang Jinglei, who believed that “softening the language surrounding CMD at a time when people need to be acutely aware of the disease’s long-term implications is premature and irresponsible.”

Dismissal from OCTPermalink

On January 16th 2040, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) accused Cariappa of intentionally misrepresenting CMD’s epidemiology figures as part of a conspiracy to avoid a mass panic. ^[6] The accusations came from an anonymous source claiming to be a member of the OCT and were based on Cariappa’s report on the unofficially sourced CMD infections, which listed a total of 30 million while the officially released estimates were capped at three million. As a result, the FAZ article was picked up by international media outlets with nearly all headlines highlighting the unofficial infection count of 30 million as genuine, which supported conspiracy theories that Cariappa and the WHO were downplaying the gravity of the CMD pandemic.

Cariappa issued a clarification on January 17th 2040, stating that the report mentioned in the article was part of early research into the psychological impact of CMD and had no bearing on the official epidemiology figures, which were still being compiled through GOARN. Yang followed up by correcting the public CMD infection count in line with Cariappa’s clarification, but continued to stress the importance of strict health and safety measures.

In the days following the publication of the FAZ article, GOARN noted a exponential rise in negative CMD diagnoses, which indicated that more people were consenting to a diagnostic colloid in order to allay concerns that they may have been infected. At the same time, a GPHIN search for online chatter related to CMD flagged an increase in discussions about colloids, with the prevailing impression that they played an instrumental role in bringing the CMD infection count down from 30 million to three million.

When colloids were labelled as “the cure for CMD,” Cariappa urged Yang to dispel this misconception, attributing it to the CMD-specific anxiety disorder he had described in December 2039. Yang responded by removing Cariappa from the OCT on January 27th 2040, telling him that he had lost the public credibility necessary to reflect the actions of the WHO. In her statement on Cariappa’s dismissal, Yang said that “the WHO’s response to the CMD pandemic requires a united front, not constant vacillating and second-guessing from within its own ranks.”

Invitation from ChinaPermalink

In February 2040, the University of Düsseldorf offered Cariappa a three-month scholar programme so that he could retain his access to the campus facilities and continue his work for the OCT in an unofficial capacity. Cariappa feared that doing so would put Muren and other OCT members who supported him in a difficult position with the WHO, and declined the offer. On Muren’s recommendation, he spent the week of February 6th 2040 assisting her and Daems with the editing of Refusing to Fold. On February 13th 2040, Cariappa returned to Toronto so he could resume his work at the PHAC.

In March 2040, Cariappa was identified as one of the last persons to speak to Muren before her disappearance on March 4th 2040. He travelled to Berlin to cooperate with German authorities and launched a personal appeal for any leads in the case, which included crowdfunding efforts on behalf of FindConnie.

On March 11th 2040, Cariappa was contacted by Yang, who was engaged in negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to allow international authorities to assess the CMD pandemic in mainland China. Muren had been part of the negotiations, but the CCP had withdrawn her invitation after her criticism of mìngyùn had gone viral in February 2040. Yang informed Cariappa that the CCP was prepared to extend him an invitation in Muren’s stead on the condition that he discontinued his support for FindConnie, which was accusing China of having a hand in Muren’s disappearance.

Based on the advice of Daems and his last conversation with Muren, Cariappa ended his crowdfunding efforts for FindConnie and accepted the CCP’s invitation, with Yang reinstating him to the OCT. Cariappa started to assemble a field team comprised of interdisciplinary OCT members, but was rebuffed by Yang, who stipulated that the CCP’s invitation only included the two of them. Cariappa ultimately set up a dedicated communication suite so he could report back his findings to the OCT for analysis.

Official discoveryPermalink

On March 21st 2040, Cariappa and Yang travelled to Beijing and met with officials from the National Health Commission (NHC). After sitting in on a conference organised by the CCP’s Politburo, Cariappa was assigned an office in the NHC building. He was immediately struck by the strict limitations imposed on whom he could speak to and what data he was allowed to review, an experience he later likened to “being held hostage.” When he found out that the OCT was working with information that was incompatible with what he was sending out, he learned that his reports were being intercepted and altered by China’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS). Cariappa also noticed that his activities in China were being misrepresented by CCP officials, who framed his and Yang’s presence in China as part of the CCP’s development of mìngyùn and the distribution of implantable multielectrode arrays (MEAs) designed by Huawei.

At some point during his stay, Cariappa was contacted by Li Qiao Fan, a psychiatrist attached to the Chinese Society of Psychiatry (CSP). Li had noted an increase in patients suffering from anxiety and mental distress related to CMD, but her article on the condition had been censored by the NHC. ^[7] Worried that this had also flagged her for heightened surveillance, Li concealed her identity using CV dazzle, joined a group of campaigners along Cariappa’s route to the NHC building, and handed him a copy of her article concealed as a pamphlet. Cariappa studied the article and found that it described aspects of the illness anxiety disorder he had reported in December 2039.

Without mentioning Li’s involvement, Cariappa raised the issue with the NHC, stating that his own research had highlighted a possible CMD-related anxiety disorder that he considered to be widespread in mainland China as well. When Cariappa made the mistake of using the term CMD phobia, which Li had coined in her article, NHC officials deduced that she had reached out to him. As a result, she was dismissed from the CSP and blocklisted by the CCP, which kept her under effective house arrest. Cariappa had his NHC access privileges reduced and was warned that any further discussion of CMD phobia would violate the terms of his invitation.

Believing that he was being isolated from the OCT and feeling guilty about Li’s fate, Cariappa was reluctant to continue his work. He showed Li’s article to Yang and asked her to declare the CMD pandemic contained, which he hoped might reduce the disease’s perceived threat and curb the spread of CMD phobia. Yang told Cariappa she would not consider such an announcement until after the OCT completed its report on CMD epidemiology management for the NHC. After OCT members released a joint statement that any report issued under the conditions faced by Cariappa would be severely compromised, Xu Shaoyong publicly vouched for Cariappa on March 30th 2040, stating that both the WHO and the CCP should “take [his] words more seriously instead of always hiding or twisting them.”

Xu invited Cariappa to Zhupao’s headquarters in Shanghai with the intent of organising a press event. Cariappa agreed on the condition that Xu extend the same offer to Li, who accepted and travelled to Shanghai alongside Cariappa. On April 3rd 2040, Cariappa and Li took part in the Zhupao press event, during which Xu accused the CCP of covering up its failings in addressing the CMD pandemic and Cariappa credited Li with the discovery of CMD phobia. ^[8] On April 12th 2040, the CCP authorised the NHC to cooperate fully with Cariappa and the WHO, which allowed the OCT to complete a range of spatial epidemiology studies.

The WHO declared the CMD pandemic contained after the OCT issued its official report to the NHC on April 19th 2040. The report included Li’s article on CMD phobia and an appendix with Cariappa’s personal observations on the WHO’s and the CCP’s handling of the pandemic. He concluded that the CCP’s initial censorship of CMD and refusal to cooperate with the WHO had created an information vacuum that promoted rumours and speculation, serving as a catalyst for the spread of CMD phobia. As such, the cause of CMD phobia has been ascribed to both too much and too little available information about CMD.

Contribution to G6Permalink

Initial proposalPermalink

On May 1st 2040, Cariappa travelled to London City at Xu’s request and met with Spencer Hagen in the Shard. At the meeting, Hagen produced a copy of the OCT’s report to the NHC and said that he had taken note of its appendix, in which Cariappa had called CMD “the closest near miss since the COVID-19 pandemic” and described the WHO’s focus on “ad hoc solutions” as insufficient to combat emerging infectious disease threats.

Hagen explained that Zhupao was in the final negotiating stages of a partnership with the CCP to overhaul China’s healthcare system. At the same time, the CCP was drafting a new cooperation strategy with the WHO to “strengthen the national healthcare system, ensure that quality health services are delivered to the people, and enrich China’s contribution to global health and biosecurity.” ^[9] Hagen proposed to combine both missions with Cariappa at the centre, suggesting that he was uniquely qualified to spearhead the data science and interoperability aspects of a biosecurity system of systems that would meet the concerns listed in his appendix.

Though suspicious of attaching his name to any partnership that included the CCP after his experience in Beijing, Cariappa was convinced by his hours-long conversation with Hagen about potential designs for the biosecurity network, which they dubbed GPHIN 2.0. According to Cariappa, the two “spent the rest of that day talking about how such a system would work, down to the smallest details. When I left [Hagen’s] office, we had figured out between us a blueprint that, by and large, went unchanged during the first months of the development process.” ^[10]

After conferring with his partner, Cariappa agreed to relocate to London City and join the GPHIN 2.0 design team out of the Shard. He also reached an agreement with the PHAC to officially represent Canada’s contribution to the GPHIN 2.0 project.

First designPermalink

On May 7th 2040, Zhupao organised a conference to unveil GPHIN 2.0 as “a new WHO-endorsed standard for biosecurity, health informatics, and implantable medical devices (IMDs),” with Xu naming Cariappa, Hagen, and Efua Amankwah-Crouse as the team leads of the project. Cariappa participated in the conference via livestream from the Shard and spoke about his vision for GPHIN 2.0, explaining how it “would not be a top-down solution that can be dropped onto every crisis of public health. There are different conflicts to consider between different priorities and different communities and different infrastructures. If GPHIN 2.0 is to be a system that can be deployed in every situation, we will ensure that it is designed to capture and respect the nuances of each.” ^[11] [12]

On May 10th 2040, the NHC provided each GPHIN 2.0 team lead with restricted login credentials to mìngyùn as part of a CCP mandate to emulate its software and differentiable neural computer (DNC) components for GPHIN 2.0. During the development of the first proof-of-concept for GPHIN 2.0, Cariappa became closely involved with Amankwah-Crouse’s artificial intelligence (AI) work. He was fascinated with the Pacotti architecture, which he described as “elegant in its simplicity. It works not by attempting to mimic the complexity of the human brain, but by finding foundational mechanisms that drive the highest levels of human thought, resulting in a new grammar of intelligence, both artificial and biological.” There was little contact between Cariappa and Hagen during development, as he spent most of his time in China and delegated his responsibilities in London City.

In September 2040, Cariappa joined Amankwah-Crouse, Hagen, and Xu to introduce the first GPHIN 2.0 testbed as a modular infranet equipped with an ecosystem of DNCs to process and standardise external databases, translate across 7,000 different languages and dialects, and design inference algorithms for data analysis. On September 5th 2040, the CCP announced a series of pilot programmes organised by the NHC to test GPHIN 2.0 at scale in the Chinese provinces of Guangdong, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Zhejiang. Cariappa was invited to Shanghai to supervise the programmes, but he still felt uncomfortable with travelling to China and decided to coordinate with the PHAC to trial GPHIN 2.0 in Canada.

Data collectionPermalink

On September 17th 2040, Cariappa noticed that his login credentials to mìngyùn had expired, which locked him out of GPHIN 2.0. When he was unable to contact the NHC, Cariappa reached out to Hagen, who claimed that he and Xu were being stonewalled as well. Cariappa later learned that the NHC officials who had sympathised with him during the time he spent in China were being carefully monitored, instructed to refuse any contact with him, and removed from office in some cases.

On September 19th 2040, Amankwah-Crouse reached out to Cariappa, claiming she had also been locked out of GPHIN 2.0 after discovering an alarming climb in projected CO2 emissions during a life-cycle assessment (LCA) study of the pilot programmes. To confirm her suspicion that the GPHIN 2.0 DNCs were being trained on data sets that far outweighed their operational requirements, Cariappa suggested the use of a security exploit that he was planning to patch out before the expiration of his mìngyùn login.

Using the exploit, Cariappa and Amankwah-Crouse found that GPHIN 2.0 was being used to process close to 31 million databases that originated from a wide variety of sources, both Chinese and international. The reconstructed filenames showed references to data formats used by Alibaba, Amazon, Apple, Baidu, Facebook, Google, Huawei, Match Group, Microsoft, Tencent, Twitter, Weibo, and other social media and data companies. Additional filenames showed databases from surveillance systems and companies such as Aegis, Cambridge Analytica, NSO Group, Palantir Technologies, and Zhenhua Data, as well as from financial services and insurance companies such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), JPMorgan Chase, and UnitedHealth Group. Some of the databases overlapped with each other, implying that they had been shared or scraped and that the DNCs were being trained on partially redundant data.

Cariappa and Amankwah-Crouse also uncovered a set of CCP databases that contained elaborate records from the Social Credit System (SCS) as well as surveillance data gathered from the Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP), the detention of the Uyghurs and other minorities in the Xinjiang concentration camps, and various liuzhi campaigns. Eventually, they determined that all processed databases had an output target named destini_1, which Cariappa attributed to mìngyùn as it is a Chinese term for destiny. He believed the CCP to be responsible for the mass data collection and suggested they inform Xu, but considering how they had found out about it, Amankwah-Crouse was reluctant to contact him.

Project walkoutPermalink

On September 23rd 2040, Zhupao held a conference to unveil the colloids that were being administered to Chinese citizens as part of the pilot programmes, with Xu personally injecting one of the colloids and demonstrating their neurometric functionality. When he consulted the technical specifications of the colloids, Cariappa found that they had been developed by Endoptic under the project name DESTINI and approved by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) as a Class I IMD for “safe and effective routine administration” in March 2040.

On September 26th 2040, Cariappa distanced himself from GPHIN 2.0, stating that it “works as intended, but it is not being used as intended,” and referencing Muren’s viral comments from February 2040. On September 28th, he terminated his contract with Zhupao amidst rumours of a nervous breakdown. Contrary to popular belief, Cariappa was not involved with mìngyùn being adopted as G6 outside of China, and has claimed no knowledge of the quantum neural network (QNN) retrofits engineered by Cengal following his departure from the project.

When the CCP announced the rollout of GPHIN 2.0 under the mìngyùn name for all its territories and special economic zones (SEZs) on October 31st 2040, Amankwah-Crouse revealed the details of the mass data collection she and Cariappa had discovered, condemning it as “decades of encoded bias and systemic racism knowingly passed down to a new generation of AI.” At his request, Amankwah-Crouse made no mention of Cariappa’s role in the discovery, though it was revealed in October 2045 by a crowdsourced investigation of leaked data from a breach of Zhupao’s corporate network.

Cariappa made no public appearances or communications between 2041 and 2044, giving rise to numerous rumours and conspiracy theories, including that he remained a silent partner on G6, that CMD was engineered by him, and that he orchestrated Muren’s disappearance. In 2043, Cariappa moved to Düsseldorf after the CCP announced that London City would be established as a Chinese SEZ by 2045.

NuancePermalink

In May 2044, Cariappa founded Nuance as a technology company in response to accusations that South Korea was engaged in nation-wide neurosurveillance and behavioural modification. ^[13] Cariappa described the purpose of Nuance as “a counterweight to Datalign,” accusing the company of “doing no more than taking ownership of localised data extraction systems, integrating them into G6, and then licensing them back to Zhupao’s clients.” ^[14]

After an initial slate of Nuance partnerships and projects in Canada, India, South Africa, and the US, Cariappa asked Amankwah-Crouse to join Nuance as a consultant. She accepted in August 2045, though she was forced to step down in October 2045 after being accused of having instigated a leak of sensitive information related to G6. Cariappa defended Amankwah-Crouse from accusations that she was Adira and echoed Atakan Selvi’s assertions that Adira is a false flag operation orchestrated by Zhupao.

In 2046, Cariappa transitioned to the role of Nuance’s CTO and announced Zac Paris as the company’s newly appointed CEO. In 2049, Cariappa indicated his intention to retire from public life on June 2nd 2051, his 50th birthday.

Personal lifePermalink

In 2006, Cariappa was diagnosed with a mild form of autism spectrum (AS) after he struggled with basic social interactions in his first year of elementary school. His parents were initially reluctant to recognise this diagnosis, but later came around and helped him with practicing routines and building familiarity.

Cariappa met his partner, Chris McLaren, through an online dating app in 2026, and they married in 2028. McLaren was diagnosed with CMD phobia in 2039 due to their habit of letting Captain Thunderpaw lick their face, which may have transferred FSE prions via the cat’s saliva and resulted in a double cross-species transmission with a significantly lengthened incubation period.

See alsoPermalink

• Cariappa-Muren disease
• Connie Muren
• G6
• Nuance

ReferencesPermalink