The Gold Mask

"The Gold Mask" is the final song from Act I of The Smashing Pumpkins' 2023 rock opera, ATUM. In the ATUM story, the song is sung from the perspective of Ruby the robot mixed the "pure essence personality of Shiny".

Synopsis
Osyraa and Nighthawk found Ruby – a robot depicting a 1930s sassy showgirl – that interfaced with the strange hard drive that was left on Earth by June. "The Gold Mask" is the song that is played when the connection with the robot is made. What happens is Ruby's AI-generated personality fuses with Shiny's "pure essence personality." Before Shiny was exiled to outer space, the XI created pure personality profiles in order to build AI that detected disobedience in the public. It was meant to prevent more people like Shiny from influencing others. June, with her wealth and connections, was able to acquire Shiny's personality profile. Thus, Osyraa and Nighthawk are effectively able to talk to Shiny through the robot, however the personality profile did not include emotions. Corgan argues that this replica of Shiny's consciousness "is actually more dangerous than Shiny himself" because it lacks emotion. He further explained that Shiny "represents a dissonant intellect that actually knows how to oppose a true totalitarian system which the XI is. And yes, stripped of emotions, stripped of human frailty, Shiny conscience is world-class dangerous."