| Le Prophète | |
|---|---|
|
Origin |
Warehouse 12 |
|
Year of Creation |
Warehouse 12 Technicians |
|
Type |
Intelligence Device |
|
Function |
Event Detecting |
|
Location |
London, England |
|
Collected by |
|
|
Usage Period |
1870-1876 |
| [Source] | |
Origin[]
Le Prophète, also known as "The Nostradamus," was an intelligence device designed for use by Warehouse 12, meant to alert the Warehouse (and by extension, the British government) of global events as they were happening.
As part of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's first term in 1868, he requested the Warehouse develop a technology to detect and alert them of current worldwide events. Warehouse technicians, led by long-time Warehouse associate Charles Babbage, pulled files and collected tech from Blaise Pascal, Gotfried Leibniz, Joseph Jacquard, Ada Lovelace, Gerolamo Cardano and Adolphe Quetelet, and developed Le Prophète, which was named after the French opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer.
After only two months of development, at Disraeli's insistence, the technicians revealed the prototype. Rushed, buggy, and not properly tested, the demonstration included no less than twenty false reports of outrageously implausible doomsday events, such as the usage of one "Minoan Trident" in an unidentified yellow stone. The somewhat comedic failure of the project prompted Warehouse staff to affectionately call the machine "The Nostradamus."
With Disraeli's failure to secure a subsequent term, the project was allowed to develop normally, and was put into official use in 1870. Compared to it's debut, "Nostradamus" was at that point able to report on true events within a day or two of them happening.
Effects[]
As a high-functioning statistics machine, Le Prophète would print out a continual spool of current events, which would be consolidated and reviewed by assigned agents. The exact means by which it worked were a closely guarded secret even among Warehouse staff, as a precautionary measure. It was a very large device, and was situated in aisle Dominic-Faustino 4689D.
Destruction[]
On October 12th 1876, Warehouse agents Harold Owens and Felipe Griffith accidentally de-railed the Warehouse steam car, the Anitlochus. The car ultimately crashed into Dominic-Faustino 4689D, damaging both Henry Weinhard's Distiller and Le Prophète beyond repair.
With Babbage at that point deceased, the Regents denied Warehouse staffs' appeals to rebuild the machine. The technology behind it, however, would eventually lead to the development of the Warehouse 13 Artifact Tracker Football.