Chapter Text
As I sit at my office desk—a floating tray of dark blue with a holographic monitor attached at the center—and my thoughts begin to clutter the screen, words and sentences materializing from my spirit, I can appreciate the level of relative safety that I live within. The walls of the University of Abel City are soundproofed, their titanium plating keeping out the vicious echo of Mavericks being shot to pieces in the background that occasionally accosts the senses, if only so the debates between scholars and students about the effects of those Mavericks upon the world can continue. It is a quaint feeling, knowing the position I find myself in: privileged enough to fight my battles with words and not blasts of the sun, I nevertheless adopt the same level of intensity and devotion to my work as would a veteran Maverick Hunter to their craft of killing.
My name is Zeta. They tell me that the letter ‘Z’ has a connotation with nothingness, that its emotive quality is embodied by empty space. I see it quite differently. After all, a blank is an opportunity: any number of words can fill it, and any number of things imagined can be thrust into reality. That potential of nothing, the infinity of finality, perhaps is the hallmark of the work I am about to share. For the greatest battles and conferences and dramatic tableaux can seem at once trivial; and the most insignificant of happenstance, from chance meetings at repair shops to a nameless Reploid’s slow fall into the grave, can move the unshakeable tectonic plates of history.
Indeed, I am a Reploid. What does that mean? Its definition has puzzled me ever since I was labeled the term. We are something like the past generation of machines: built to serve a certain purpose, our hearts not made of flesh but steel, even as we think our souls are not made of lead. But the problem is that that purpose is not defined. We possess an intellect capable of maneuvering our spirits towards any direction we choose, able theoretically to mark what our purpose is. Just as any human would, correct?
But we are not the same, are we? It isn’t just the anatomy or the physiology. We Reploids are of our own uncertain class, designated as human-like but not necessarily liked by humans. People still feel us unnecessary, artificial appendages of the human condition who should know their place, if not to be eradicated altogether to make way for the ambitions of humankind. We are perennially out-of-place, not organic enough to pass for human but not mechanical enough to enjoy a pure robotic identity. In a way, it is a depressing lot to be at the midsection of a Venn diagram.
And yet, we live and fight on. Our culture is defined by a productive-violent tension: the need to cleanse our people of the stain of the ones they call ‘Mavericks.’ Even years after their first appearance do they defy all concrete definition—is it a digital disease, a choice, or a malfunction? Why does it keep happening, despite all efforts to contain it? Is it just a natural occurrence that we will never truly be able to contain? Those questions, unfortunately, I am not equipped to answer. No amount of mind-wringing by historians will get the reader to believe that a knowledge of the past will aid definitively in one’s future.
All the historian can do, I believe, is provide perspective for the present. So that we may understand the how and why of the world around us, and through that esoteric knowledge, somehow endeavor to avoid the impending destruction that accompanies ignorance to the world. That is what I seek to do: to present a narrative that documents the build-up towards and unfolding of what we call the Maverick Wars upon my people and humanity alike.
History is not for the pure-of-heart. Any intentions on turning history into a production of child’s play are even more unfounded than not doing history at all. But between the scroll of the death toll, the descriptions of devastation and heartbreak across cities like the one I call home, and tragic depictions of valor and loss both, perhaps the full continuum of the sentient experience may be better comprehended. At least, that’s the prospect that keeps me writing. That keeps me from deciding to shutter my lights.
With luck, wit, and courage, I present this work to you, dear reader. I know not what will come of this world ten, five, or even one year from now; for all I understand, this text will be forgotten in the hellfire of the future, and in that case, if I were still sitting in this chair with the flames licking at my face, the only thing I could do would be to take pride in what I had set out to do.
Even if not a soul reads this, I will have done all that I could. I will have done all that is possible of the humble historian.
Let that fact give me, and you, solace.