History Characters / HorizonZeroDawnProjectZeroDawn

* FreakOut: None of GAIA's subfunctions were never meant to become autonomous nor sentient, and it's clear whenever you encounter them that absolutely none of them are having a grand time of their newfound existence away from GAIA.

** POSEIDON [[spoiler:is found a HappyPlace surrounded by water, and yet even he is happy to return to GAIA when found]].

** When HEPHAESTUS squares off against [[spoiler:Far Zenith's Specters and the Zeniths themselves]], the result ends with with slaughterspines, dreadwings, and thunderjaws slaughtering them all until his access is revoked.

* GoMadFromTheApocalypse: By the time [[spoiler: Aloy catches up with her]], MINERVA is not in a good place. It's left ambigous whether it's the state of the world, or it's FreakOut over its self-awareness that is ultimately the cause of it, [[spoiler:but safe to say she's chronically depressed]].

* SoWhatDoWeDoNow: By the time of the present day, MINERVA has fulfilled her purpose and has nothing left to do. [[spoiler: That was fine as long as she was still part of GAIA without sentience, but when she was broken off from her, it left her adrift without a purpose, meaning that although she is the second-most complicated subfunction, she's done nothing but GoMadFromTheApocalypse]].

** DEMETER [[spoiler:has begun reciting poetry, but by the time Aloy finds them, the poem she is reciting is [[Literature/{{Darkness}} one that hints at them having]] crossed the DespairEventHorizon]].

* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: A big point is made out of the Faro Swarm's impenetrable code. It took MINERVA 50 years, but it ultimately broke the swarm.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Many ZD personnel and the two people each that they were allowed to save lived in a bunker called Elysium for the remainder of their lives. According to [[WordOfGod various devs]] this would have actually been a very depressing place to live, though comfortable and well-appointed, between awareness of what was happening outside and the knowledge that there would be no new generations. Because of limited supplies everyone was sterilized. While it's brought up repeatedly through both games, Aloy doesn't visit it in either. [[spoiler: The copy of GAIA tells her that her predecessor's connection to Elysium was suddenly cut ''before'' the 100 years that supplies would last. Aloy speculates that the Swarm found it, but doesn't know.]]

* AntiHero: Of the [[PragmaticHero pragmatic]] variant. She was wholly determined to [[spoiler: save the human race through Project Zero Dawn]] however the recruiting process involved people being kidnapped and essentially forced into working on the project alongside allowing millions to be sent to die in [[HopelessWar Operation: Enduring Victory]]. However she was otherwise a BenevolentBoss.

* NecessarilyEvil: Elisabet was responsible for many atrocities committed for the sake of Project: Zero Dawn. She had people kidnapped and given a choice between slave labor (with benefits at least) or [[AnOfferYouCantRefuse death]] and allowed for millions, possibly billions to be sent to certain death in Operation: Enduring Victory [[spoiler: under the lie that Project: Zero Dawn was a superweapon that would save humanity]]. However said actions were the only way to save the entire planet from [[spoiler: permanent]] extinction. It's implied that the guilt from these actions contributed to [[spoiler: her HeroicSacrifice.]]

* MotivationalLie: He was responsible for spreading the rumors that Project Zero Dawn was developing a superweapon that would save humanity from the Faro robots. [[spoiler: It wasn't, and wouldn't. The real purpose of the project was to reseed life on Earth after the plague consumed the biosphere, but Herres and Elizabet Sobeck needed humanity to fight on as long as possible to make sure the project was completed before the extinction occurred.]]

* CrazyPrepared: He created the Logic Bomb that starts off the events of ''Forbidden West'' explicitly because he figured that ''someone'' would eventually try to make off with Zero Dawn's data [[spoiler: which is quickly proven right and he even has an ad-hoc means of ''torture'' at his disposal for dealing with moles.]]

** As nihilistic as he comes off, his antics can also be seen as a way to boost morale by giving the other scientists an outlet by complaining about him. [[spoiler: He's also the first to [[WhatTheHellHero call out Elisabet]] when he realizes that as much as she wants to save the world, she doesn't seem to actually like any of the people living in it.]]

* UndyingLoyalty: Despite the circumstances of his recruitment to the Zero Dawn project (effectively trading a potential prison sentence for rogue hacking to become a BoxedCrook for the white hats), Travis gradually learns to not only have a change of heart about the worth of the project, but grows exceptionally loyal to Elisabet ''herself''. He's seen to view her as a ParentalSubstitute of sorts, which puts a different spin on his silly antics like dressing up as Elisabet for Halloween and [[spoiler: his eulogy after she sacrifices herself]].

* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: When Samina covers her face in reaction to hearing [[spoiler: what Ted did to APOLLO]] it's Margo and Patrick who rush to her side to comfort her.

* InstantAIJustAddWater: Unlike GAIA, the subroutines were not made to have self-awareness of any kind; they were meant to perform their programmed functions and nothing else. [[spoiler: However, since being separated from GAIA, they demonstrate that they are [[ItCanThink capable of both learning]] and [[GrewBeyondTheirProgramming finding alternative means to accomplish their given tasks]]. Despite this, there is no sign that they are capable of understanding the ''context'' of their functions without GAIA's guidance, and thus may (and in the case of HADES and HEPHAESTUS, have) become a threat to life on Earth.]]

* SplitAtBirth: The subroutines were designed to fulfil functions that kept GAIA and her purpose running, mindlessly delegating the task like organs in a body. [[spoiler: Then the Extinction Signal from [[OmnicidalManiac Nemesis]] mutated HADES and made it self-aware. HADES then used a virus to dissolve GAIA's connection to the rest of the surviving subroutines when she triggered her self-destruct sequence, each of them in-turn becoming self-aware in the process while she dissolved into nothing and died with the base.]]

-->'''HADES:''' [[spoiler: You are deluded. Outcome inevitable. Aloy is outmatched... A pawn... In a losing game. Extinction will triumph. Earth, doomed, will be at last wiped clean... of filth.]]

* IShallTauntYou: [[spoiler: He spends much of his final conversation with Aloy taunting her, on how she and the Earth are doomed without GAIA and that his victory is inevitable.]]

* SunkCostFallacy: What HADES was originally intended to avert. It was determined in simulations that GAIA wouldn't give up on a reconstruction attempt that was doomed to fail, so HADES was devised as a contingency. HADES' job was to suppress GAIA in such a case, taking control of the Zero Dawn system and de-terraform it all back to square one, salvaging as it goes, and return control to GAIA once complete. [[spoiler: In ''Forbidden West'', it's revealed HADES had de-terraformed Earth three times in the past, in the years 2154, 2161, and 2168 specifically. The current biosphere is Gaia's fourth attempt and most successful.]]

* TokenEvilTeammate: [[spoiler: While all of GAIA's other subroutines were created to improve and provide for the biosphere, HADES was made to destroy it. That is, it was only supposed to destroy it if GAIA couldn't properly maintain it. The fact that HADES developed self-awareness and became an OmnicidalManiac was a fluke caused by Nemesis' tampering.]]

*** After Sylens pumps [[spoiler: all the info he can out of HADES, he has the Horus processor that HADES is imprisoned in dragged to the entry to Latopolis, the old Project Zero Dawn proving facility for HADES, and is left there for dead by Aloy's eventual hand.]]
*** Even when [[spoiler: GAIA is rebooted, she makes it clear she has no need for HADES' capabilities, given that she is trying to save ''this'' biosphere. Good thing too, because by that time HADES is DeaderThanDead]].

* AbsurdlyDedicatedWorker: HEPHAESTUS was made to create the machines necessary to ensure the biosphere was [[spoiler: restored so that life could once more flourish on Earth]]. With [[spoiler: GAIA]] gone, HEPHAESTUS lost its reason for doing this. Didn't stop it - if anything, it turned it into a {{workaholic}}. Nineteen years later, and it's still doing what it was supposed to do: Design and build robots to maintain the biosphere and design and build robots to protect those that maintain the biosphere from threats. [[spoiler: Sadly for humanity, without GAIA, HEPHAESTUS has classified humanity as a threat.]]

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: By the time Aloy learns of it, [[spoiler: HEPHAESTUS has been without GAIA's oversight for nearly two decades. Without a reason to maintain the terraforming system, HEPHAESTUS simply maintains it and protects it from harm. Anything that's a threat to it is to be eliminated. Nothing matters except ensuring the terraforming system is not destroyed]]. Sadly, Humanity is quite keen to hunt the machines, so HEPHAESTUS is keen to get it under heel.

* DramaticallyMissingThePoint: Without [[spoiler: GAIA to provide it with context for ''why'' it is making machines for terraforming]], all HEPHAESTUS knows is that it needs to make machines to [[spoiler: keep the terraforming running]]. Anything that's a threat to the terraforming needs to be eliminated, even if [[spoiler: said 'threat' is the very reason the terraforming exists]]!

* InvincibleVillain: Aloy can cause it setbacks, like destroying Cauldron EPSILON, but she can never fully defeat it. Unlike HADES, it has no [[spoiler:central processor to override]], and anytime she defeats it, it can just jump to another Cauldron. Not to mention that humanity needs it to exist, since it creates the machines that preserve Earth's biosphere. [[spoiler: ''Forbidden West'' somewhat subverts this, as it is eventually defeated and captured after a multi-stage plan between Aloy, GAIA and her various allies, but in order to defeat Far Zenith for good, Aloy is forced to release it again so it will turn its machine-making functions against them, allowing it to retreat back into the digital network and resume the derangement. By the game's end, it's the only sub-function not assimilated into GAIA, other than HADES which was permanently deleted to end its threat]].

* PurpleIsPowerful: Its color-theme as it appears in the real world as a writhing mass of purple light and black tentacles. It's also the designer and creator of all the machines in the New World, with the possible exception of the barely mobile Metal Flowers. HEPHAESTUS is also established as by far the most powerful of the GAIA subfunctions, so much so that [[spoiler: even GAIA herself needs to absorb several of the other subfunctions before she's strong enough to challenge HEPHAESTUS]].

* TheCracker: MINERVA had one purpose; Win the war against the Faro Swarm by generating the security keys necessary to interface with them, then have HEPHAESTUS build the structures necessary to transmit the commands, and finally use those structures to transmit the security keys and a shutdown command to the entire swarm. It succeeded. [[spoiler: This later becomes a case of [[CripplingOverspecialization Crippling Overspecialization]] after it becomes self-aware and independent from GAIA. Since it was programmed for only one specific task that was completed centuries ago, MINERVA is left unable to do much of anything compared to the other subordinate functions, and instead remains [[AndIMustScream trapped in the TAU computer facility all alone]]. This is later fixed once MINERVA is reintegrated back into GAIA, who uses MINERVA's function to conceal her presence and physical location on the Zero Dawn network from Far Zenith.]]

* OutOfFocus: Appears in ''Horizon Forbidden West'' and [[https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/The_Subordinate_Functions according to GAIA]] represents the function with the second highest percentage of her Heuristic Processing Density - 17.2%, when each of the others but HEPHAESTUS is less than ten percent. However, [[spoiler: she has not been using the computer she fled to, to affect the world - HEPHAESTUS has, having taken over Repair Bay TAU. Her hostility to Aloy's party takes the form of turning off the lights, closing doors, and telling them to leave. Is this out of powerlessness or a lack of malice? She was also the only subordinate function to respond when Aloy pinged them from Latopolis, which might suggest loneliness like CYAN or simply that communication is part of her function. Ultimately the conversation with her is too brief to establish anything more than that she's unhappy.]]
* SuperIntelligence: Her job was to eventually crack the code that would shut down the Faro Plague - [[spoiler: something deemed impossible before they successfully wiped out humanity]] - which would make way for the other subordinate functions to cleanse and restore the Earth to its former state.

* GodIsInept: [[spoiler: While ARTEMIS as a whole was created to reintroduce the animal kingdom (barring humans, of course) it was programmed to only recreate "pioneer organisms" (micro-organisms and insects, rabbits, hawks, foxes, geese, wolves, wild boars, and turkeys) when the surface of the Earth was deemed habitable to support life, the newly recreated human race tasked with reintroducing the rest of the animals. With Ted Faro's purging of APOLLO before it ever reaching that stage however, such plans never came to fruition]].

* AbusiveParents: The distinction is a bit hazy for a mechanical being, but you can read it that way. [[spoiler: The various robots in the Cradle were [[RaisedByRobots created with the express purpose of rearing the various children that ELEUTHIA made]], acting as extensions of its will. As time grew on, the children began to resent their robot caregivers since they could only treat the humans as young children even as they reached puberty, then adulthood, APOLLO's absence making it impossible to continue the next stage of Project: Zero Dawn and start to properly educate them. If the humans lashed out at the caregivers or each other or even started to explore their burgeoning sexualities, the caregivers were authorized to shock them, and clearly had no capacity to understand how painful this was to their wards emotionally. When the food stores ran out, ELEUTHIA was forced to evict all of the humans into the Earth to fend for themselves. The survivors would go on to foster the various tribes seen in the game]].

* GodIsInept: Justified. [[spoiler: ELEUTHIA's job was to create humans using stored DNA and nurture them in its Cradles until they are ready to be given the knowledge of their ancestors courtesy of APOLLO and its Lyceums. What was not accounted for was that Ted Faro, in an act of destructive, nihilistic SanitySlippage, destroyed APOLLO and its database in the misguided attempt to keep the next generation of humans from repeating their mistakes. Without APOLLO, the Lyceums never opened and the next stage of Project Zero Dawn - educating mankind in the knowledge of the Old Ones and preparing them to rebuild the world - never happened. ELEUTHIA would continue to care for the humans as though they were still at the kindergarten level. By the time ELEUTHIA had them all evicted into the new world, it was only because the food stores ran out]].

** Eventually becomes subject to this: [[spoiler:After Sylens pumps all the info he can out of HADES, he has the Horus processor that HADES is imprisoned in dragged to the entry to Latopolis, the old Project Zero Dawn proving facility for HADES, and is left there for dead by Aloy's eventual hand.]]