Dr. Elisabet Sobeck — founder of Zero Dawn and the woman who saved mankind from extinction by the Faro Plague — sacrificed her life in order to protect what remained of her friends when the protective doors to GAIA Prime wouldn't close, leaving the remaining Alphas exposed to the Faro Plague. Rather than wait out what's left of her life at her family's farm like in canon, she makes the long, arduous trek to the Project: Zero Dawn facility where they kept cryogenic pods, making out last-ditch effort to live to see a thriving Earth again.
A thousand years later, her clone Aloy discovered her cryogenically preserved body in the facility beneath Sunfall, and she returns to awaken her genetic progenitor after HADES is defeated and the Shadow Carja are driven off.
Choosing Life Verse is a Horizon Zero Dawn Series Fic written by mr_jaybird_619
, set in a continuity where Elisabet survived into the events of Horizon Forbidden West. The series can be read on Archive of Our Own here
.
This fanfic series provides examples of:
- Adaptational Karma: HEPHAESTUS had to be released to neutralize Far Zenith's Spectre forces, and in canon, managed to escape back into the Cauldron network. Here, the other A.I. subroutines, still retaining their sapience and with a little help from Beta, created a dynamic partition in their network and made it resemble the Cauldron network, so HEPHAESTUS would enter it of its own accord and get recaptured.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Aloy always was The Hero, but in the games she was The Stoic and The Aloner compared to some of the more lively personalities she encounters along her journey, having developed this kind of outlook due to her upbringing. Here, she'd more willing to accept help and companionship, even if she has to be convinced, after spending enough time with her biological mother Elisabet.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Elisabet seems to take no small amount of satisfaction teasing Aloy on her crush on Ikrie, which goes a long way in getting them to bond.
- Anger Born of Worry: With the scientist Elisabet now trying to be a mother figure to the huntress and adventurer Aloy, the former gets anxious and terrified when her new daughter throws herself headfirst into battle with armed rebels or murderous machines, and the latter gets anxious and terrified when her new mother tries to defend her from danger despite being wholly unsuited for combat. Several of their moments pushing each other away is each expressing worry for the other's safety through anger.
- Animal Motifs: ARTEMIS seems to have glommed onto wolves as its way of seeing things. It describes itself being a part of GAIA as a "pack", using the same word to describe Aloy, Beta and Elisabet's family unit. It even punctuates the word with a howling wolf sound-bite.
- Ascended Extra:
- In Forbidden West, Vanasha only appears in the opening, helping rebuild Meridian at the Battle of the Alight and looking after Prince Itamen as his nanny. Here, she enters into a relationship with Elisabet and tags along with them into the West.
- AETHER in canon was perfectly willing to return to GAIA as it once was. Here, it prefers its autonomy (even in its limited capacity) and only agrees to return to GAIA and work with them if its allowed to keep its sapience.
- While Talanah only appears in one side quest in Forbidden West, here she joins the gang as Aloy's girlfriend.
- While ARTEMIS in canon was taken and integrated into the Zenith's version of GAIA off-screen, here they're the second AI Aloy finds, having escaped into the San Diego Holo-Zoo.
- Bleed 'Em and Weep: While Aloy has a pretty big body count on her hands and has no trouble in offlining humans and machines alike, she is shaken when MINERVA pleads for her to revert it to its base code and make it part of GAIA, because it has been alone and isolated for so long that ceasing to exist is preferable to the ever-present misery, on account of how her own isolation had made her feel. As a result, she tries to find a way to rejoin the other A.I. subroutines with GAIA and work together instead of resetting them.
- Brutal Honesty: Aloy admits that she's not much of a politician, finding the whole idea of tactfully getting around to the meat of the matter eventually frustrating, but a skill she needs to learn eventually. In the meantime, her family and allies usually do the talking when it calls for it.
- Busman's Vocabulary: All of the A.I. subroutines integrate their area of expertise into their way of speech; AETHER describes things in terms of wind and storms, POSEIDON describes the ocean's currents, ARTEMIS talks about packs and animals, etc.
- Career-Ending Injury: After Vanasha gets a cut across her mouth from rescuing Kotallo from the Zeniths, she admits that her career as a spy is probably over with such a distinctive injury and scar.
- Cry into Chest:
- In Chapter 6, Aloy finally gets a chance to grieve over Rost's death, and sobs into Elisabet's chest in front of his cabin.
- Chapter 30 has Elisabet crying into Vanasha's arms after she permanently cuts off Tilda, even though they'd been separated for a thousand years.
- Cowardice Callout: Instead of blowing up the Bulwark, Aloy, Varl and Kotallo call out Tekotteh of cowardly hiding behind his walls, not allowing his Tenakth warriors to prove their bravery in the Kulrut. It's so effective that all of the Sky Clan warriors move to follow them back while Tekotteh can only impotently rage after them.Varl: I may be a savage, and not know your ways, but as I understand it, Tenakth don’t follow cowards. I thought that the Tenakth respected strength, and valor in battle. It’s a shame none of your warriors will get the chance to prove themselves that way, or tattoo any new victories.
- Damsel in Distress: Instead of Beta, it's Elisabet that's captured by Far Zenith at the story's climax and virtually tormented to work for them.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: It's lampshaded multiple times that Aloy's feelings of jealousy and resentment she has when Elisabet prioritizes Beta's safety or attention is not unlike a child who resents their new baby sibling because of all the attention their parents give them.
- Exact Words: Aloy and Elisabet go along with the Quen's belief that Aloy is Elisabet reincarnated while Elisabet is her birth-mother, both facts technically true in the loosest sense. It's after Thebes collapses and Ceo dies when they tell Bohai the actual details.
- Fighting from the Inside: When Lis sees AETHER's code, it's clear the A.I. has been fighting off the Zenith's code, the very code that gave it sapience, and keep it from turning it against humanity for all the years it has been separated from GAIA.
- Grave-Marking Scene: The epilogue chapter has Elisabet bringing Aloy and Beta to the Sobeck family ranch (which Aloy didn't visit in this timeline) and showing them their grandmother Miriam's grave.
- Has a Type: It's lampshaded that Elisabet seems to have a thing for Femme Fatale Spies, having dated Tilda and later Vanasha.
- Hereditary Homosexuality: Elisabet only seems to have a thing for women — first Tilda, then Vanasha — and her clone/daughter Aloy winds up having a thing with Ikrie in their brief time in The Cut before moving on with Talanah.
- Hollywood Atheist: Learning the science behind her world's mysticism, not to mention having been a personal victim of the Nora's beliefs, Aloy has very little patience or respect for the beliefs of those she encounters in her travels. This makes her come across as insensitive, something Elisabet (who herself is a scientist that discourages superstition) tells her is not a proper way to handle things.
- Imposter Forgot One Detail: One of Far Zenith's virtual attempts to break and manipulate a captured Elisabet is to use a simulacrum of Vanasha, but she realizes what's going on when the false Vanasha uses the wrong term of endearment, "sweetheart" instead of the correct "firebrand".
- Innocent Innuendo: When Aloy remarks that they should look for "something wet" as a sign of POSEIDON, Talanah can only give her a cheeky smirk.Aloy: [Blushing] Wet like a busted pipe! Maybe some kind of infrastructure the Old Ones left behind. I don't know, there doesn't seem to be much of a city left.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Beta is late for a shared breakfast with Elisabet, and trying to cover up her panic, agrees with Elisabet's query that she ran up here for the coffee. Beta declares that coffee is the best despite never having tasted it before, and upon taking her first sip, spits it out at the bitter taste.
- In the End, You Are on Your Own: Downplayed; Aloy brings Beta, Vanasha and Talanah with her on the assault on Far Zenith, but the latter two are injured too badly to continue in the fight against Erik Visser, leaving Aloy with only the non-combatants Beta and a soon-to-be-rescued Elisabet with her when she faces off against Tilda in her Specter Prime unit.
- It's All My Fault: Elisabet puts much blame on herself for her unwitting part in the creation of the Chariot line, them exterminating all life on Earth, and the extreme actions she had to take with PROJECT: ZERO DAWN, to the point that she suffers from severe depression, PTSD, and guilt.
- It's Personal: Given her past relationship with Tilda, Elisabet both is intensely suspicious at anything involving her, yet can't bring herself to break off contact when Tilda contacts her in secret. When Aloy tells her that Tilda spotted her while she was searching for ARTEMIS but covered for her, Elisabet insists that they can't trust Tilda and she has her own agenda.
- Lethal Chef: Even when she had Old One technology on hand, Elisabet was always a lousy cook. The last time she tried to cook a stew, it had somehow ended up congealed and watery at the same time.
- Lost Common Knowledge: More than once, Elisabet laments how much past knowledge was lost with the destruction of APOLLO. In Chapter 3, she laments that the new world doesn't even know what coffee is.
- The Missus and the Ex: Aloy has a moment of panic when Talanah, her current paramour, shows up at her base at the same time as Ikrie, her Old Flame, along with Ikrie's new girlfriend Varga. Especially since Talanah and Ikrie met up on their travels and got around to discussing their shared paramour.
- Mundane Utility: The enemy pathing feature of The Focus was used by Elisabet... to avoid annoying co-workers in the Old World.
- Mythology Gag: Unlike in canon, Aloy doesn't need to blow up the Bulwark wall to get the Sky Clan on her side, instead convincing their warriors to follow them through a Cowardice Callout. As Elisabet makes her way to Tenakth lands, she hears stories that Aloy did blow up the Bulwark to do so.
- Nature Is Not Nice: When the Chorus make the argument that the Utaru should do nothing but let themselves die as nature intended, Elisabet manages to convince them out of this mindset by pointing out that plants have evolved ways to keep them from extinction.Elisabet: ...nature isn't passive. Nature fights. It scraps and claws and does everything it can to survive. There IS one thing that ties all living things together—the will to live. [...] A nettle stings so that predators won't eat it. Plants send their seeds out on the wind, so that if they are dying in ground that cannot sustain them, at least their descendents can take root somewhere else and flourish. They take care of their children by changing and sending them somewhere new—would you do less for your own? Would you condemn all your innocent children to die, because you won't even risk as much as a dandelion?
- "Not So Different" Remark: A good part of the friction between Aloy and Beta at the beginning is Aloy seeing Beta as weak, sheltered and soft, and Beta seeing Aloy as lax and unprepared for Far Zenith (and envious of her bravery and freedom). Several people say they both get their stubbornness and determination from Elisabet, both know what it feels like to be seen as lesser by society (Aloy as a Nora Outcast, Beta as the slave to the Far Zenith), both are braver than they give themselves credit for, and both really want to connect with their new mother.Elisabet: [to Beta] Aloy doesn’t hate you. But she has found you hard to be around sometimes—that’s not all you, by the way. Some of that is between us, me and Aloy. I think the two of you are more similar than you are different, in some ways, although don’t get me wrong, you’re also very different people.
- Parents as People: A lot of the story is dedicated to Aloy and Elisabet's new dynamic as daughter and mother, both of them trying to find their footing and take care of the other. There's a whole lot of pushing and pulling as they try to interact, say things they don't mean, spend time apart, and come back together. And the addition of Beta makes things even more complicated as the dynamic changes to mother, daughters and sisters.
- Point of Divergence:
- Forbidden West opens with Aloy traveling to the old Far Zenith facility to find a copy of GAIA. Here, that moment is replaced by her waking up Elisabet in the Zero Dawn Facility, bringing her to the Sacred Lands and then to The Cut. While Aloy procures AETHER in the Tenakth Capital, Elisabet and Vanasha visit the Far Zenith Facility to try and learn more about the Zeniths and Beta.
- While in canon Aloy, Varl and Zo failed to sway the Chorus to allow them into the Sacred Cave, here Elizabet successfully convinces them that their resignation to die is born out of faulty logic, encouraging them to actually try and fight off their deaths using their own plant-based way of thinking things.
- In Forbidden West, Aloy and Kotallo had to kill a Tremortusk and blow a hole in the Bulwark with its cannon in order to convince Tekotteh to send his Sky Clan warriors to the Kulrut. Here, Aloy, Varl and Kotallo manage to reframe Tekotteh's strategy of waiting out Regalla's rebellion behind The Bulwark as a sign of cowardice. Because the Tenakth are a Proud Warrior Race, he's forced to allow his soldiers to compete at the Kulrut or else lose the respect of his men.
- Aloy is affected by MINERVA choosing to end her existence and be reduced to her base code to merge with GAIA, seeing it as someone Driven to Suicide from isolation and her having to do it. As such, when AETHER expresses its autonomy, she convinces Elisabet and GAIA that the other A.I. subroutines can be purged of their Zenith code and work alongside GAIA instead of being reverted to their base code and absorbed into her. This added independence makes them valuable to the assault on Far Zenith, and even re-capturing HEPHAESTUS.
- Power of Trust: There is some initial hesitance to working with the A.I. subroutines and allowing them to keep their sapience even though the Zenith code that did so could be corrupting them into working against humanity, instead of reverting them to their base code, removing their sapience and merging them with GAIA. But when Elisabet trusts AETHER to guide her in excising its own code and sees that it's been fighting off the Zenith code all this time, she agrees to help her and AETHER lets down its firewalls to reciprocate.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Vanasha says as much about Aloy's growing group after she suffered a Career-Ending Injury to her role as a spy (a very distinctive injury to her mouth) and Aloy says she'll always have a place with her.Vanasha: Quite a band of misfits we make. Two clones, an Old One, two combatants maimed out of their jobs, many who do not fit in with their tribe. No place I’d rather be.
- “The Reason You Suck” Speech: Elisabet gives out a glorious and satisfying one to Lansra when she starts accusing Elisebet of abandoning Aloy when really it was her and the Nora for doing it.Elisabet: I never abandoned Aloy! Your goddess did create her, out of my blood, in your damn mountain, but I never knew! The ones who abandoned Aloy are you, you and your superstitious, fearful tribe!
Lansra: [Started stammering] I...we...the Nora are not fearful, we are the chosen people of the goddess... How could you not know of a girl of your blood?
Elisabet: G—the goddess made her in my image. The goddess and I were close, but long ago a tragedy left me unaware for many years, and the goddess thought I was dead. When the goddess decided to…to have a child, one who could help her heal the earth, she made one using blood from me. There was no father, and Aloy has every right to go inside the mountain where she was born. And so do I.
Lansra: [voice shaking] How...how could the goddess have not known you lived? She is all-knowing and all-powerful, but if you say you knew her...
Aloy: The Metal Devil hid Elisabet from All-Mother. But Elisabet is right. She has just as much right to go behind the Sacred Door as I do.
Lansra: Chosen, Chosen of the goddess. Forgive me for doubting you, Anointed, please, forgive! Forgive!
Elisabet: Maybe instead of asking for forgiveness, you should stop doing things that make you have to ask for it in the first place. You never should have treated her this way. Your entire tribe shouldn't have. You should all be ashamed.
Aloy: She’s right. It would be better for the Nora, all Nora, if you worried less about what was tainted and more about what is right. - Romantic Ride Sharing: Aloy decides to travel with Talanah for a while, and while they are riding on the back of a Charger, with Talanah holding onto Aloy from behind, Aloy hopes they don't find another Charger mount for her.
- Rummage Sale Reject: Elisabet helps Beta pick out a new set of clothes from Aloy's spares to help her acclimate to Earth. The result is a mishmash of fashion that, while simple and practical, looks ridiculous to her friends and sister.
- Significant Name Shift: It's always a significant step forward whenever Elisabet, Aloy and Beta refer to each other in familial terms, 'mother', 'daughter' or 'sister', and a sign of trouble if they backslide into given names.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: The only way to describe every interaction between Sylens and Tilda, with Aloy and Talanah barely tolerating their presence.
- So Proud of You: Elisabet says this a lot in regards to Aloy and Beta, when the former shows kindness and maturity, when the latter comes out of her shell, and especially when the two of them are nice to each other.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- The whole plot hinges on Elisabet surviving to present day, rather than dying before the events of the first game.
- Fashav survives Regalla's attack on Barren Light because due to the reduced time between the two games (3 months instead of 6), she didn't have enough time to muster as large a force as in canon.
- The A.I. subroutines, AETHER, ARTEMIS, POSEIDON and DEMETER, are not reverted to their base code when they reunite with GAIA, meaning they keep their sentience and independence. This is because Aloy was so affected by MINERVA's choice to end its existence out of misery, she decided to Take a Third Option to excise the Zenith's controlling code, so that they can work with GAIA instead of merging with her.
- While the Zeniths kill Varl at Cauldron GEMINI in canon, here Tilda managed to save him by transferring some nanites into him.
- Stealth Insult: Elisabet means every word she says when she tells Ceo he's "as much of a hero as Ted Faro was".
- Stress Vomit: When Elisabet learns about what became of Ted — turning himself into a Genetic Abomination — her first reaction is throwing up. Not out of pity or disgust (having already lost what little respect she ever had for him by then), but from the shock of it.
- Take a Third Option: The A.I. subroutines need to work with GAIA in order to save the planet, but while they still have the Zenith code that made them sapient, they could be a danger to corruption, but reverting them to their base code to merge with GAIA means that they'll effectively die with their sentience removed, something that AETHER rejects. Aloy, after what she had to do to MINERVA, decides to try and remove the Zenith code from the subroutines, so that when they merge with GAIA, they'll maintain their sapience and will work with her instead, and while the others are hesitant, they eventually come around to the idea.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- Downplayed; Elisabet, being a non-active scientist recently defrosted from cryosleep, isn't that much of a fighter or hunter. While the adventure does toughen her up and give her some martial experience, the best she gets capable of is keeping up with Aloy's climbing and running without getting too badly winded.
- Varl couldn't do anything to a shield-protected Erik who stabbed him through the chest, but after being saved and healed by Tilda's own nanites, he gains equivalent Super-Strength enough to shatter another Zenith's shield with one punch, leaving him open for an arrow through the chest.
- Trauma Button:
- Elizabet has a PTSD flashback — or "Warrior's Shock" as Kotallo calls it — after she finds out that Ted Faro used a code she had written when she worked for him to program the Chariot line, making her tangentially responsible for the Faro Plague.
- Just being near a Zenith is enough to give Beta a panic attack.
- [Verb] This!: Erik has Aloy in a Neck Lift and is Evil Gloating about slowly strangling her and watching the life leave her eyes, to which Vanasha yells "Watch this!" and spears him through the chest from behind.
- What Have I Become?: Varl has a brief moment of this upon learning that Tilda transferred some nanites into him to save his life after Erik impaled him, making him a stronger and faster half-machine. For a member of the machine-shunning Nora, such a thing shakes his faith and it takes him a while to regain his equilibrium.
- Worth Living For: Elisabet has to rescue an injured Aloy from Tenakth rebels, and is alarmed that Aloy wasn't trying to fight back. Aloy rationalizes it as being Not Afraid to Die because it doesn't matter as much with Lis around to open the doors, but Elisabet is horrified at that argument and insist that Aloy matters beyond being her clone, a tool to save the world, that she matters as a person.
