Nidhogg Protocol

The Nidhogg Protocol (尼德霍格协议) was a clause of the cooperation agreement between Griffin & Kryuger and IOP. It is named after the dragon of death gnawing the roots of the world-tree in Norse legends.

The Protocol was secretly agreed upon by both parties in 2054, alongside the standard IOP Doll Service Agreement. It granted IOP the right to send an emergency shutdown signal to all their Tactical Dolls under G&K's employment if IOP determined that they were being used for illegal means or otherwise represented a threat to society. G&K would still retain ownership of the Dolls' data. Invoking the Nidhogg Protocol effectively marked the end of the cooperation between IOP and G&K, given the complete reliance of G&K on IOP Dolls.

In the final phase of the Battle of Frankfurt, the Commander defied the Prometheans. To stop the Commander, Lyons had Havier Witkin activate the Nidhogg Protocol to strip away their authority over 98% of their T-Doll force, with the remaining 2% being Dolls from other origins such as AR Team, Squad 404, Task Force DEFY and Hume Dolls. However, Witkin was sympathetic to the Commander's cause and staggered the activation of the Protocol over 12 hours, starting with the weakest Dolls first. This enabled the Commander to breach the Frankfurt White Zone and confront the last surviving Nyto commanders. In the Bad End 01 timeline, Lyons activated the Protocol himself, forcing the Commander to lead a suicide bombing attack against the White Zone instead.

After the Commander's attack on the White Zone, the deactivated Dolls were marked for retrieval by IOP, boxed and stored in a local warehouse. Kalina later broke into the warehouse and reactivated ^HG TokarevTokarevTokarev to search for the Commander. They were later joined by ^AR CZ-805CZ-805CZ-805, ^RF C14C14C14 and ^SG Six12Six12Six12, possibly as a favor from Witkin, who was using Kalina to find and capture the Commander. During the mission to assassinate William, M16A1 also entered the warehouse and used Dandelion to reactivate all the Dolls to attack William's hideout. After the Commander completed the mission, all the Dolls were deactivated again. However, they were not punished for disobeying IOP's orders and were in fact granted full autonomy, which was one of the Commander's request before being exiled by the Prometheans.