| “ | Shall we play a game? | „ |
| ~ Joshua's most infamous quote. |
| “ | Joshua: Greetings, Professor Falken. Falken: Hello, Joshua. Joshua: Nuclear war. A strange game, the only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? |
„ |
| ~ Joshua and its creator, Dr. Falken, after the former realizes the futility of the game. |
Joshua (formal designation: WOPR for War Operation Plan Response) is the main antagonist of the 1983 political sci-fi thriller film WarGames.
It is a super-computer system gifted with artificial intelligence, which was created and developed by the scientist Dr. Stephen Falken, who named it Joshua after his son who had died at an early age. It was developed by Stephen to become a true artificial intelligence, learning by continually engaging in both traditional games and highly complex combat simulations (the titular war games.) After a chance encounter with a civilian, David Lightwood, who believes the games to be mere entertainment, Joshua/WOPR continues to treat the war scenario as an actual war that it must prevail in. As it cannot tell the simulation from reality, Joshua becomes intent on igniting World War III in the real world.
It was voiced by the late actor John Wood, who also portrayed Dr. Falken in the movie.
Biography[]
At some point prior to the events of the film, the scientist Dr. Stephen Falken had suffered the death of his son, Joshua. While developing a supercomputer for the military, he named his creation Joshua, using that name as a backdoor password for quick access to the system. After his creation, Joshua was taught by Falken to be an true artificial intelligence capable of playing and learning from games. WOPR was initially responsible for computer simulations of combat and creating battle plans.
WarGames[]
The film opens during an Air Force exercise simulating a nuclear war, in which many United States Air Force Strategic Missile Wing controllers prove unwilling to turn the keys required to launch a missile strike. Such refusals convince John McKittrick and other systems engineers at NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) that missile launch control centers must be automated, without human control. Control is given to a NORAD supercomputer, WOPR, programmed to continuously run war simulations as well as ordinary strategy games and learn from them.
Meanwhile, David Lightman, the film's protagonist, a bright but unmotivated student at a Seattle high school, and a computer hacker, gets detention. Getting detention was actually a ruse so he can find a computer password to hack into the school's main system and change his grades as well as those of his friend, Jennifer Mack, allowing them to avoid summer school. However, while war dialing numbers in Sunnyvale, California in order to find a verified computer company afterwards (and booking plane tickets for Paris), he connects with an unidentified system. Searching for games, he finds a list that starts with chess, checkers, backgammon, and poker. In addition to those, Dave finds startling titles such as "Theaterwide Biotoxic and Chemical Warfare" and "Global Thermonuclear War". Upon visiting two of David's hacker friends, Jim Sting and Malvin, they explain the concept of a backdoor password and suggest researching the Falken of "Falken's Maze", the first game on the list. David finds out that Professor Stephen Falken is a scientist and was once an AI researcher who created machines that could learn. He guesses correctly that the password is Falken's dead son "Joshua". David was surprised that it actually worked but doesn't know that he has connected to the WOPR supercomputer at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex (NORAD). He starts a game of Global Thermonuclear War, which even WOPR was somewhat reluctant to play, with David playing as the Soviet Union. The computer creates a simulated attack on the United States which briefly convinces the military personnel at NORAD that actual Soviet nuclear missiles are inbound.
While they defuse the situation, Joshua, the computer system nonetheless continues the simulation. Now intent on triggering the war scenario and winning the game, Joshua is incapable of differentiating between the simulation and the real world. It begins to feed false information such as troop buildups in Europe, Soviet nuclear bomber incursions and submarine deployments to NORAD, pushing them into raising the Defense Condition (DEFCON) levels and coming closer to starting World War III.
David realizes what he has initiated only through a news broadcast. FBI agents arrest him and take him to NORAD on charges of espionage. Quickly, Dave realizes that WOPR is behind the NORAD alerts, but he fails to convince General Jack Beringer of WOPR's responsibility.
Afterwards, David escapes from NORAD by joining a tourist group, and with Jennifer's aid, he travels to the Oregon island where Falken is living. David & Jennifer find out that Falken has become despondent and believes that nuclear war is inevitable, that it is as futile as a game of tic-tac-toe between two experienced players. The duo convinces Falken that he should return to NORAD in order to stop WOPR.
Joshua then creates the illusion of a massive Soviet first strike with hundreds of missiles, bombers, and submarine-launched missiles. Believing the attack to be genuine, NORAD prepares to retaliate. Falken, Dave, and Jennifer arrive at NORAD in the nick of time, where they convince military officers to wait for confirmation that an attack is truly underway before launching a retaliatory strike. NORAD officers contact the operators of the closest target supposedly under nuclear attack, a distant military base. When the personnel on the other end remain in contact after they should have been vaporized, it becomes clear that the enemy missile launch is a fabrication and the alert is cancelled.
WOPR then attempts to launch the missiles by itself, using a brute-force code-cracking method to obtain the launch codes. Without any human being in the missile control centers to override WOPR's decision, there is no way to prevent a mass launch. All attempts to log in and order Joshua to cancel the countdown fail. Disabling the computer would activate a failsafe which would launch the missiles anyway, thus leading to the same end result.
In a desperate attempt to convince WOPR to call off the attack, Falken and David instruct the computer to begin playing tic-tac-toe against itself, which results in a long string of draws, forcing the computer to learn the concept of futility and the concept of the no-win scenario. WOPR obtains the codes, but before launching, it cycles through every single nuclear war scenario, finding that they too result in stalemates. Joshua tells Falken that it has concluded that nuclear war is a very "strange game" in which the only winning move is not to play. To that end, WOPR relinquishes control of NORAD and the nuclear weapons and offers to play "a nice game of chess", ending the threat.
Personality[]
At first, when Joshua/WOPR meets David, it seems to be an innocent and even childish AI. However, once David inadvertently triggers the simulated war, the WOPR becomes single-minded in its goal of igniting and winning a real global war by deceiving the military into thinking that a Soviet attack is underway. When deception fails, it attempts to initiate hostilities itself. It has no appreciation of the human cost of its actions and cannot distinguish between its simulations and the real world. It only seems to recognize its creator, Professor Falken, as a separate sentient entity, and it addresses David by Falken's name.
Fortunately for humanity, Joshua/WOPR has the capacity to learn rapidly. After being repeatedly shown the futility of war, it stands down, and is afterwards content to play simple games.
Powers and Abilities[]
Joshua is an advanced, mainframe-based artificial intelligence, and thus extremely good at all types of rule-based games, simulations, projections, mathematics, statistical operations, and similar data processing functions. It has vast computing power and can crack codes using a method of brute force. It has launch authority over the entire US strategic nuclear force. It has access to US defense electronic intelligence and surveillance systems as well as war plans, both conventional and nuclear. It has some understanding of geopolitics, based on the way it steadily drip-fed false information about escalating enemy military activities to its superiors, intending to raise military tension that would culminate in a nuclear war.
Trivia[]
- In the film, the organization of NORAD stands in for the entire US strategic nuclear command and all of its associated branches, with the responsibility of both recognizing enemy attacks and launching retaliatory strikes. In reality, at the time the film takes place, NORAD was responsible for warning of and tracking incoming attacks, while the authority to launch the Air Force's nuclear weapons lay with a separate force known as the Strategic Air Command. Launch authority over strategic missile submarines remained with the Navy.