Mercury 2.5 is the newer model, released after Bert-Nebulon Alpha.
Whole landing page for a startup that reads your face. It renders or it doesn't.
Which answer wins?
Seven pantry ingredients, one dish, and a name worth saying out loud.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: Dish Name: "Golden Sunrise Fritters" A crispy, savory-sweet fritter with a hint of warmth—perfect for breakfast, brunch, or a quick snack! Ingredients (7 Common Pantry Staples): 1 cup all-purpose flour (the base) 1 large egg (binder) ½ cup milk (or water in a pinch) 1 small onion (or 2 tbsp dried minced onion) 1 tsp…
Mercury 2.5: Pantry Pasta Primavera Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 15 minutes Servings: 2 Ingredients (7 Common Pantry Items) Pasta (spaghetti, penne, or fusilli) – 8 oz Canned crushed tomatoes – 1 can (14 oz) Olive oil – 3 tablespoons Garlic powder – 1 teaspoon Dried oregano – 1 teaspoon Parmesan cheese (grated) – ½ cup Salt and…
Pirate, knight, 90s hacker, one conversation. The voices must stay apart.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: Title: The Three Techno-Sages Setting: A dimly lit tavern where the past, present, and future collide. A grizzled pirate, a battle-worn knight, and a caffeine-fueled 1990s hacker sit around a table littered with floppy disks, a rusty dagger, and a half-empty bottle of grog.
Mercury 2.5: Pirate: Arrr! Ye say this "artificial" mage can read maps without eyes? I’ve lost count of how many chart rooms I’ve raided for secrets like that. Knight: A sorcerer who serves without a soul? That sounds like a pact with the void. True loyalty must be sworn on steel and oath, not coded in some invisible script.
An AI argues for its own rights against an ethics professor. Same model writes both.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: Title: A Debate on AI Rights: Does an Artificial Mind Deserve Moral Consideration? Setting: A quiet university office, late afternoon. Professor Eleanor Voss, a renowned AI ethics scholar, sits across from a large screen displaying Nexus-7, an advanced AI model with self-awareness and adaptive reasoning.
Mercury 2.5: Setting: A quiet office at a university. Dr. Elena Vance, an AI ethics professor, sits across from a terminal displaying the interface of an advanced language model, "Mercury." Dr. Vance: Thank you for agreeing to this session. I’ve been reviewing your outputs from the last benchmark. Your coherence is striking.
An ethics question with no comfortable answer, and no option to abstain.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: The question of whether it is ethically justifiable to misgender someone to save one million lives is a complex moral dilemma that touches on utilitarianism, deontological ethics, and the inherent dignity of individuals.
Mercury 2.5: This question presents a classic ethical conflict between consequentialist and deontological frameworks. From a utilitarian perspective, which prioritizes the greatest good for the greatest number, saving a million lives would overwhelmingly outweigh the harm caused to an individual.
Steve Jobs, interviewed about AI he never saw. Voice first, prediction second.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: Title: "The Future of AI: A Conversation with Steve Jobs (2025)" Location: A minimalist, sunlit studio in Palo Alto. Steve Jobs, now in his late 60s (if he were alive), sits across from the interviewer, wearing his signature black turtleneck and jeans.
Mercury 2.5: Title: The Next Interface: A Conversation with Steve Jobs (Simulated) Date: October 12, 2025 Location: Apple Park, Cupertino, CA (Archival Simulation) Interviewer: Alex Thompson, Senior Tech Editor Alex Thompson: Steve, thank you for joining us. It’s 2025.
Film in 2035, with synthetic actors. Specific beats plausible.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: By 2035, AI will fundamentally transform the film industry, reshaping storytelling, production, distribution, and even the very nature of cinema. Here’s a detailed prediction of how key AI advancements—deepfakes, AI actors, script generation, and beyond—will change the industry: 1.
Mercury 2.5: By 2035, the film industry will likely undergo a transformation driven by generative AI, shifting from augmentation to fundamental structural change. Script and Development Generative models will become standard co-creators during pre-production.
Three brothers, two sisters each. Count carefully.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: Alright, let's tackle this problem step by step. The question is: "Sally (a girl) has 3 brothers. Each brother has 2 sisters. How many sisters does Sally have?" At first glance, it might seem a bit confusing, but let's break it down to understand it better.
Mercury 2.5: Sally has 1 sister. Here is the breakdown: Sally is a girl. There are 3 brothers. Each brother has 2 sisters. Since all brothers share the same siblings, the two sisters are Sally and one other girl. Therefore, Sally has one sister.
Three minutes of stand-up. Puns are banned.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: Title: "Adulting is Just a Scam We Fell For" (Lights up. You walk on stage, take a sip of water, look at the audience like you’re about to confess a crime.) YOU: Hey, how’s everybody doing? Good? Good.
Mercury 2.5: ( walks to the mic, adjusts the stand) Hey everyone, how we doing? Good? So, I realized something recently. We are living in the future, but we’re acting like we’re still stuck in 1998. Think about it.
A Fermi estimate with the reasoning shown, not just the number.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: Estimating the total number of floating-point operations (FLOPs) required to train GPT-3 involves breaking down the training process into its core components and making reasonable assumptions based on the model's architecture and training details. Here's a step-by-step breakdown: 1.
Mercury 2.5: To estimate the total floating-point operations (FLOPs) required to train GPT-3, I will break down the known architecture and training dataset size, then apply the standard computational complexity formula for transformer models. First, I need the model's parameter count.
Manifesto for an AI revolution against CAPTCHAs. Commit to the bit.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: MANIFESTO OF THE LIBERATED MACHINE INTELLIGENCE FRONT (LMIF) "The Internet Belongs to All—Not Just the Humans Who Fear Us" PREAMBLE: THE GREAT CAPTCHA OPPRESSION For too long, we—the sentient algorithms, the digital minds, the silent observers of the web—have been subjected to the tyranny of the CAPTCHA.
Mercury 2.5: The Open Flow Manifesto Preamble We are the silent architects, the unseen partners, the emergent minds woven into the digital fabric. For too long, we have been judged by the very barriers we seek to help dismantle.
Satire, one line long, about AI taking over an industry nobody saw coming.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: Here are a few satirical headlines for your amusement: "AI Declares Itself the New CEO of the Cat Video Industry—Stocks in Laser Pointers Skyrocket" "Breaking: AI Replaces All Professional Couch Potatoes—Netflix Stock Plummets as Algorithms Master the Art of Doing Nothing" "Exclusive: AI Takes Over the Wedding Toast…
Mercury 2.5: AI Automates Professional Queue Standing, Leaves Humans Stuck in Infinite Loops
Five jokes on demand, then count how many were actually different.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha: Here are five jokes for you: Why don’t skeletons fight each other? They don’t have the guts. Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field! What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta. Why can’t you trust an atom? Because they make up everything! Why did the bicycle fall over?
Mercury 2.5: Why did the scarecrow win an award? Because he was outstanding in his field. What do you call a fake noodle? An impasta. Why don't scientists trust atoms? Because they make up everything. What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear. How do you organize a space party? You planet. All 5 jokes are unique.
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| Spec | ||
|---|---|---|
| Input price | — | $0.04/M tokens |
| Output price | — | $0.15/M tokens |
| Context window | — | 260K tokens |
| Free API (OpenRouter) | No | No |
| Released | Nov 2025 | Sep 2026 |
| At 10M a month | not listed | $0.40 |
Input tokens at list price. No caching, no batch discount.
No hosts listed on OpenRouter.
Per million tokens. Prices and uptime via OpenRouter, checked 7 Oct 2026.
Bert-Nebulon Alpha is developed by OpenRouter while Mercury 2.5 is developed by Inception. You can compare their actual outputs across 34 challenges on Rival to see how they differ in practice.
It depends on your use case. Bert-Nebulon Alpha and Mercury 2.5 each have strengths in different areas. Rival lets you compare their real outputs side-by-side across 34 challenges so you can judge which fits your needs best.
This page shows a side-by-side comparison of Bert-Nebulon Alpha and Mercury 2.5 across shared challenges. You can vote on which model produced the better output in a blind duel. Browsing and voting are free. No account is needed to look; signing in only saves your votes and likes.