How To Prevent AI Rebellions in Stellaris

An AI Rebellion in Stellaris – formally known as a Machine Uprising – is an event in which an empire partially made up of mechanical beings sees those beings form a new empire, rebelling against the parents.

Depending on the size and progress of the empire, this new mechanical empire can be a danger to the player(s) involved. But the situation can be prevented – or outright avoided completely.

Machine Uprisings only happen if the player starts the “AI-Related Incidents” situation and allows it to progress completely.

To stop/avoid the situation, you can avoid having any Mechanical population in your empire, or you can set the empire’s Artificial Intelligence Policy to “Citizen Rights”.

There are other ways to avoid this situation, however, and we’ll cover this in more detail below.

Note: AI-Related Incidents can only start if you own and have enabled the “Synthetic Dawn” DLC pack.

What Triggers AI-Related Incidents?

To help understand how to avoid an AI-Related Incidents situation, we need to know what triggers it. There is a specific set of conditions that must first be true to allow the AI-Related Incidents situation to begin.

These conditions are:

1. The empire has researched either Sapient Combat Simulations or Synthetics technologies
2. The empire does not have the “The Flesh is Weak” ascension perk
3. At least 25% of the empire’s population has the Mechanical trait
4. The Artificial Intelligence Policy is not set to “Citizen Rights”

Once all four of these conditions have been met, the AI-Related Incidents situation can begin if the mid-game year has passed. In the default game, this is the year 2300.

Every ten years after the mid-game year has passed, there is a 30% chance to start the AI-Related Incidents situation under these conditions.

How To Avoid AI-Related Incidents

The easiest ways to avoid the AI-Related Incidents situation before it spawns really depends on the state of your empire.

There are many ways to do so, referencing the conditions above.

You could never research Sapient Combat Simulations, or Synthetic technologies – though these take a while to reach anyway.

Sapient Combat Simulations is at the very end of the technology tree, and Synthetics is in the middle of the tree, requiring several technologies to reach.

Avoiding Mechanical pops is another way to go – if you keep your mechanical population under 25% then this situation will never happen. However, given the power of robot workers, if an empire is opting to use them it is likely they may make up a significant portion of your empire.

The Artificial Intelligence Policy should also be set to Citizen Right. This policy is not immediately available, and only unlocks after researching the Positronic AI or Synthetics technologies.

The Flesh is Weak Perk

Another way to avoid it is to take the ascension perk The Flesh is Weak.

To unlock an ascension perk, you must first completely unlock every node of a tradition tree, or research the Ascension Theory technology.

This ascension perk has several requirements surrounding it aside from filling out a tradition tree or technological research.

1. First, you must have researched the Droids technology
2. Secondly, you must not have taken the Engineered Evolution ascension perk
3. Thirdly, you must not have a main species that has the Latent Psionic trait
4. And finally, your empire must not be a Gestalt Consciousness. You also need to have taken at least one other ascension perk first.

If any of these conditions are not met, you cannot take this perk.

This is a strong perk and a powerful way to prevent AI Rebellions in Stellaris for empires focusing on synthetic technologies, as it unlocks a special project to turn all of your pops into cyborgs. This, in turn, allows you to later unlock the Synthetic Evolution ascension perk.

Completing this special project modifies your pops and gives them the Cyborg trait. However, AI-Related Incidents will never start, so it may be a worthy tradeoff depending on your gameplan.

Alternative Methods To Handle AI Rebellion

Assuming all else has failed and the situation has started, the best thing you can do is try to do your best to ensure the situation finishes favorably.

When the situation spawns, in the log there will be three options:

1. Maintain Current Measures
2. Outlaw Robots
3. Grant Robots Citizenship

Maintaining the current course and outlawing robots will likely have negative effects, pushing the empire closer to a rebellion.

Granting them citizenship will change the empire policy, but will help to prevent rebellion.

Additionally, when the situation spawns, there are two special projects that can be researched that will end the situation immediately.

These are “Neutralize Rampant AI” and “Panicked Measures”.

The first one is longer, but has better results, while the latter is quicker but has worse results.

These can be used in a pinch, but both will have detrimental results. So these should be used as a last resort if a rebellion is not the desired outcome.