Stanley Chen

Stanley Chen
General Information
Culture	Old Ones (Chinese)
Gender	Male
Pronouns	He/Him
Affiliation(s)	Far Zenith Oa8is Filtration
Position	CEO
Home	Sirius
Status	Deceased
Biological Information
Birth	2014 or earlier
Death	Sometime from January 13 to 16, 3012 Sirius
Cause of death	Killed by Nemesis
Age	~998 or older (at death)
Production
Appears in	Horizon Forbidden West (recordings only)
Portrayed by	Lobo Chan (voice)

"Stanley. Ever the optimist. He was one of the good ones."

―Tilda van der Meer

Stanley Chen was a minor character in Horizon Forbidden West. He was a member of the Old Ones think tank Far Zenith.

History

Life on Earth

In 2035, Stanley Chen failed to impress investors with his water filtration system concepts. This was because one of his lawyers had leaked 'critical information' about his project to a competitor. After several failed interviews, desperate and on the verge of losing everything, Stanley, at the Tempo casino in Las Vegas, bet all the money he had left, $88,000, on a roulette wheel. In an extraordinary turn of luck, his gamble paid off, earning him almost $3.2 million and another chance to start his dreams. He took the chance and made the most of it, increasing his fortune to $200 billion in only five years.

The dome around Las Vegas.

Las Vegas within the dome.

Later that same decade, Las Vegas was becoming increasingly unpopular and uninhabitable due to the Hot Zone Crisis. With temperatures at unendurable highs and tourists, Vegas's main source of income, disappearing- Las Vegas was at its breaking point. However, in May 2040, Stanley and Oa8is Filtration broke ground on one of the most ambitious construction projects in American history, building a dome over the entire city, making portable water accessible for everyone and saving Las Vegas. However, it was clear that many Americans didn't want Stanley there, to which he quipped how resentment against Chinese political influence had turned Las Vegas into "a boiling hotbed" of nationalistic sentiment, but how his immense fortune had "cooled that down," finally "warming America" to his idea of a new Las Vegas.

In 2047, an elementary school, Stanley Chen Elementary, was opened in his honor.

At some point, Stanley found that maintaining the dome around Las Vegas was especially difficult. He enlisted the help of Miriam Technologies, who helped him design a custom robotic ecosystem to prevent, identify, and repair structural issues across the city, all with minimal impact to remaining desert wildlife, with adaptation of Miriam Technologies' Winnow scrubbing drones able to reduce legacy microplastic content within the system by 73%.

At some point, Stanley joined Far Zenith.

Unfortunately, in the mid-2060s, with the growing threat of the Faro Plague, Las Vegas was headed towards an inexorable doom, and Stanley could not save it a second time. Unable to fully give up on Las Vegas, Stanley left his water systems on standby, in the hope that someone one day may rediscover the city. After doing so, Stanley joined other Zeniths aboard the Odyssey to Sirius in order to escape the Faro Plague.

Life on Sirius

Thanks to various pharmaceutical and genetic treatments, Stanley was granted physical immortality, allowing him to survive for centuries. After they established a colony on Sirius, Stanley created an exact replica of Las Vegas in virtual reality, every detail perfectly recreated. Whereas the other Zeniths secluded themselves in their own virtual spaces, Stanley made his space open to everyone.

While it is unknown whether Stanley had any role in the creation of Nemesis, he was one of the Zeniths who perished when the AI broke free.

Legacy

Stanley's decision to leave Las Vegas' systems on standby enabled POSEIDON to take up residence in the ruins of the city, and ultimately for Aloy to find and retrieve it. Additionally, Stanley's wish was fulfilled, as Morlund, Abadund and Stemmur were able to establish the settlement of Hidden Ember at the ruins of Las Vegas, reigniting the life that the city had in the Old World.

Relationships

Tilda van der Meer

Stanley evidentially had a positive relationship with Tilda, who remembered him fondly, recognizing him as "one of the good ones".

Associated Datapoints

Horizon Forbidden West

Audio Datapoints #5 Where it Started #7 The Lumiere Grande Incident #8 The Fountains #9 One Final Walk #10 Against All Odds	Text Datapoints - Quests #11 Stanley Chen: Looking Back (mentioned only) #13 Las Vegas Timeline (mentioned only)	Text Datapoints - World #19 Church Claim (mentioned only) #25 MERASUR Sweet (intended recipient)
Vista Points #4 Vista Point: The Stillsands (mentioned only) #5 Vista Point: Dunehollow (mentioned only)

Trivia

• Stanley's financial renewal story bears a notable similarity to that of real world Fredrick W. Smith, the founder and chairman of FedEx. During the early days of the company, with a budget of only $5,000, FedEx was unable to pay a $24,000 fuel bill, and was denied a business loan. In order to make enough money to foot the bill, Smith took the $5,000 to Las Vegas and bet it in games of blackjack, successfully turning $5,000 into $27,000, saving the company from collapse, and later became one of the biggest and most successful businesses worldwide.