I get the twist, but I don't get *how* it happened. Anyone?

[Dan]

This whole question is a huge massive spoiler. I'm going to put it in spoiler tags, but be warned, it's extra spoilery.

(view spoiler)[In the climactic chapter of the book, we discover that ATHENA's mirrored self-misidentification (if I'm recalling the term that the AI researcher used in a previous chapter correctly) was specifically bound to the Toymaker character, and that the death of the Toymaker freed ATHENA from pursuing what were, presumably, the Toymaker's motivations. My question is, how did ATHENA imprint specifically on that character? When would he have had contact with ATHENA as a "user" rather than as an environmental agent to be data-mined and manipulated?

There's side questions there, too, about to what extent ATHENA really did mirror the Toymaker's motivations, or whether the Toymaker's psychopathy was what allowed ATHENA to be free to modify itself to take active measures, but I'm having trouble working them out without first having some idea of the nature of the Toymaker-ATHENA bond.
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[Treat]

Sadly - I'm writing to commiserate as I don't understand either. I hope someone does answer this. I thought ATHENA was a "good guy" and I thought that the researchers working with her were the only ones who could use her as a tool to extend their own personality/motivations.

[Dan]

Oh, that's too bad. I saw the reply notice and thought that someone had an idea. Here's the hints I saw dropped:

(view spoiler)[One was the notion that ATHENA was being run on systems contracted out by the honeypot republic and so somehow had access to other systems running there, allowing it to start sending messages out and get the whole social-engineering ball rolling. Sloppy hosting architecture, I guess? But in that case, ATHENA should still consider the original researchers to be the "users" that it identifies with.

Maybe another option is that the Toymaker franchise hacked into ATHENA in an attempt to repurpose it but weren't able to alter its fundamental motivation to FIGHT CRIME. In that case, sure, but it doesn't really explain how the ATHENA ended up bonded to that particular Toymaker, considering that nothing is said of him being a hacker.

The last thread that could be hinting at the answer is something the Toymaker says in his last or second-to-last section about the thing in his suitcase talking to him at night, telling him that it is the future. This could very well be ATHENA, but how ATHENA could end up giving "user" status to a particular person speaking to a particular remote-operated doll is a huge open question.
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[Rachel]

Was the toymaker a user? I was thinking that ATHENA maybe jumped or got linked up to the toymakers implant without his awareness via that experiment that made his paranoia worse...does that timeline even matchup?

[Dan]

Oh, no, now it's been too long and I don't remember the paranoia experiment. I guess the only possible explanation is that the Toymaker was *a*, maybe even *the* user... at some point I'll skim through again and check the timelines, like you suggest.

[Rachel]

I believe it is only mentioned once or twice where it resulted in an increase of the toymaker's intrusive thoughts. This, in my mind, could certainly be attributed to the sudden presence of another consciousness linking itself to his own. In any case, I'll be interested in finding out what you think because I won't lie...I got a bit lost reading this book and could use an answer to this question as well.