The landscape within Horizon Zero Dawn is a beautiful thing to behold. Even the robots, their physical appearances copying that of various animals that are no longer on Earth adds a pleasing visual touch. To bring the reality of a post-apocalyptic world, anthropologists were consulted to authenticate the world’s decay over a millennium, making everything that is seen to be accurately correct. An interesting concept, when research has been dedicated to the curious prediction of what the world would look like without humans in it for many many years.
What is even more interesting is in this post-apocalyptic world, is the concept that humans are no longer the head of the food chain. It’s not necessarily that something else has taken its place, but rather, humans are no longer the most important thing anymore. Remember, the world had survived throughout humans’ self destruction and their selfishness for hundreds of years; but the introduction of AI just escalated its destruction in a matter of months.
And what’s even more interesting, is that it took other AI to actually save Earth from itself.
The game has shifted from what we know as an outcome from world disaster and turned it into something else. Something more. It seems, even if it’s just in this episode, we need to look back to look forward.
This is Two Takes. And this is ‘One Shot’. An analysis of the game: ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’.
Although the main storyline is not the subject matter, there is a potential for spoilers ahead.
The history behind Horizon Zero Dawn seems to begin within the mid-21st Century and the technology corporation Faro Automated Solutions. From the creation of combat automatons that were designed around the concept of a swarm, the Chariot line of combat automatons were of artificial intelligence, so-much-so, they could self-replicate themselves, were virtually immune from hacking, have the ability to instantly enslave enemy automatons, and to consume organic matter (living or dead) as fuel when they ran out.
Now think about that. As a military contract, sounds like the best deal ever, right? Now think about it in reality. Anything with that sort of intelligence was deemed to cause chaos. And so it did.
There was a “glitch” which made them become an independent entity, and with no way of hacking it, and with the self-replicating programming, within 15 months, it used so much organic matter as fuel it made the Earth sterile and derelict.
To slow this swarm down, “Operation: Enduring Victory” had thousands of people fight back the swarm whilst the real plan named “Horizon Zero Dawn” could succeed in creating a AI global terraforming system that would also brute force the swarm’s deactivation codes, shut them down, and restore life to the planet.
But before we dive into the AI that saved the planet, let’s explore the ones that killed it.
Earlier on, they were described as the ‘Chariot’ line of military combat automatons, with the intention of using biomatter conversion (using organic matter and transforming it into fuel) as an intended emergency alternative fuel source, which we know became their automatic response to low fuel. They used a cloud of ‘nanites’ called a ‘nano-haze’ that stripped organic matter and passed it back to the robots; in our reality, nanites or nano-robotics is still an emerging technology of creating robots whose components are at or near the scale of a nanometer, and constructed of nanoscale or molecular components, intended for work obviously too small of humans or their tools.
Much like in ‘Death Stranding’ there are moments like this where things from our reality are merged into the gameplay. Take the word ‘Chariot’ to begin with; first used as a weapon in Egypt around 1600BC, they became known as a elite force in the ancient Egyptian military and were usually delivering the first strike. In the game, the machines were designed to be deployed as swarms which were each overseen by a master unit, similar to certain insects, and much like the first line of attack, like the Chariots in Egypt.
The master unit? Horus. And its swarm? Machines called Scarabs and Khopeshes. Or better known as the Metal Devil with its Corrupters and Deathbringers by Aloy and the tribes of the post-apocalyptic world.
FAS-BOR7 HORUS (Metal Devil) are the ones that can be seen on the map, on the edges of the mountains to the Northwest. It is the colossal machine resembling a giant lobster/sea scorpion or any similar aquatic arthropod. It’s drill-like tentacles and its size made them capable of penetrating fortifications and bunkers, whilst climbing over mountains, and they were considered the “queens” of the swarm. This might be because they were the main replicators of new members of the swarm (Scarabs and Khopeshes). And while fully capable of refuelling using biomass conversion, the standard was to make its swarm do it for them. In a way, because of its behaviour and size, Horus was the perfect name for this machine; Horus, in our reality, is the falcon-headed God in ancient Egypt, with his name meaning “he who is above” and “he who is distant”, his domain was many, but he was primarily recognised as the God of the sky and of war. The symbol, the eye of Horus, befits protection and royal power; in the Egyptian language, the word for this symbol was ‘Wedjat’, and in itself, Wedjat was a solar deity and this symbol began as her all-seeing eye.
However, I feel the eye of Ra is more fitting for this Metal Devil, as that represents the destruction of the God Ra, to which Horus is deity to. The destruction and power of the sun in all its blazing glory.
To break it down; the sun god for ancient Egyptians had many names, with Khepri (the morning form), Ra-Harakhty (form of Ra associated with Horus) and Atum (the old, evening form). And much like this sun god, the Chariot line had three forms or functions too.
One such form is the FAS-ACA3 SCARAB (Corrupter); the fastest of the Chariot robots, capable of quickly scuttling over all types of terrain, taking over other robots to do its bidding, armed with self-repair or repair components for other units, whilst also an offensive attacker; with the vague resemblance to a large, black scorpion. The Egyptian god Khepri, Ra as the Rising Sun, was often depicted as a Scarab beetle and the ancient Egyptians believed that Khepri renewed the sun everyday by rolling it above the horizon and beyond, much like the dung beetle the scarab is family to. Ra, part of Horus, covers the sun and the sky, and Khepri represents the sun’s rising, and in extension could also represent the creation and renewal of life…Which in this instance is not a good thing, as this type of machine can replicate itself, creating a swarm.
Another form is the FAS-FSP5 KHOPESH (Deathbringer), the heavy firepower of the Chariot swarm, and one of the various machines that don’t resemble any fauna. It is a very powerful mobile weapons platform, with all six stout legs connected to a circular swivel that allows the head to turn 360 degrees. The name it was given, Khopesh, in our reality, is actually an Egyptian sickle-shaped sword that evolved from battle axes. The inside curve of the weapon could be used to trap an opponent’s arm, or to pull an opponent’s shield out of the way. Considering this machine doesn’t resemble anything from the living world, the choice to call it after a weapon is not a co-incidence. And like a weapon that could end someone’s life, this could be presented as one of the three forms; the ending, the evening, the night of death, much like the name the tribes of Horizon Zero Dawn have given it.
So we have an all-seeing Egyptian Sun god in all three forms, in their Chariot, with their swords (khopesh) and scuttling all-terrain battle beetles (Scarab) that can multiply, repair and kill on site, all the while sucking up the bio-matter of the Earth as fuel. What a image!
But there is more, as well as Egyptian Gods and representations, Horizon Zero Dawn has included Greek mythology as well.
The use of Greek and Egyptian mythology, especially in the realm of gods and goddesses, could be because of their influence in our everyday lives. True, we might not believe in them in the physical sense, but the concept of how they make us behave or manifest certain things, still makes it relevant. We believe in what they can do for us, and every one of them has a different role to play. They might be mythological folklore, ancient even, but even now, within gaming in this day and age, they still hold true to personify something such as war or the harvest to be a physical embodiment, to be human-like and to have a name to look up to. We do the same, even in our reality, when we wish for something so much we sometimes end up praying for it, placing our wants and fears unto another deity or god-like presence that we have faith in, and hope that they answer to our needs.
This choice of the names given to some of the machines and especially the AI and its sub-functions can be a physical embodiment of what they do.
Their chosen names encourage what they represent, perhaps making it easier for the audience to understand their functions within the gameplay.
For me, I just like the research and dedication to include something so ancient in mythology in our reality to also be placed as something ancient in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn; it can almost connect this fictitious new world in the future to the one we have now, and perhaps some small lessons can be learnt here. But that might be for another episode.
In any case, each machine and each AI and it’s subfunctions have a purpose within the terraforming of the Earth after the Faro Plague outburst. The history can be pieced together within the gameplay, to which I shall not delve into too deeply. And so, from exploring the machines that ended the world, we now explore the machines that helped us regain it again.
I present GAIA and her many sub-functions.
Gaia, in our reality, is a Greek primordial deity who is the personification of Earth and the ancestral mother of all. She is the ancestor of all Greek deities, and in the reality of Horizon Zero Dawn, she can be presented as the grandmother of all the named sub-functions contained within her AI.
Purely seen as a management AI, GAIA advanced further and developed emotional capacity, empathy and a benevolent and nurturing personality. These qualities gave GAIA a genuine sadness over life’s extinction and a real sense of guardianship over the new life that Horizon Zero Dawn would establish.
GAIA’s subfunctions also had important roles to play, and they all also represent a Greek god or goddess.
MINERVA was the code breaking subordinate function. It was successful in brute-forcing the Faro Plague’s deactivation codes and broadcasting them all over the world, essentially shutting them all down. It’s a strategic move in defensive warfare, which its Greek and Roman goddess counterpart is known for.
ARTEMIS (known as the Goddess of the hunt) restored the fauna, DEMETER (known also as the Greek goddess of the harvest, agriculture and overall fertility of the Earth) restored the fauna and ELEUTHIA (Greek goddess of childbirth and midwifery) restored the human race through artificial means of facilities called ‘Cradles’ that would store and eventually raise cryogenic specimens.
AETHER (Greek deities and their personification of pure upper air that the gods can breathe) detoxified Earth’s atmosphere, whilst POSEIDON (Greek god of the sea) detoxified the Earth’s bodies of water.
Both were done by the machines made by HEPHAESTUS (Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworkers, craftsmen etc), who, when freed like the rest of the subfunctions from GAIA’s control, deemed humans a threat, and so made the machines less docile and prone to sometimes attack humans on sight.
HADES, seen as the failsafe function protocol to reverse the terraforming process should it produce conditions unstable for life; is like, in our reality, its Greek god of the dead counterpart, programmed/created for death. In the gameplay, HADES did more than just wait around, it used a virus to set itself (and the other sub-functions) apart from GAIA, becoming its own entity; and then manipulated those around it (mostly the Carja) to do its bidding by exchanging forgotten information of the ‘Old Ones’; essentially using what the dead knew and giving it to the living for a price.
This information was meant for the new humans to educate them about the past, however, due to the sabotage of Ted Faro (what the Faro Plague was named after), APOLLO (Greek and Roman god of truth, prophecy as well as other things), had its archiving function fail, and so, the humans that we see in the game had no prior knowledge of pre-extinction flora and fauna, or even anything about themselves and why the world in Horizon Zero Dawn is as it is.
It seems, once again, the mistakes of the past have made the future completely different.
There seem to be layers that can peel back a certain warning about the dangers of AI and the need for excellence and power, whilst projecting the truth through exploration, human interaction, and in this case, the need for life to get back to normal…all on a larger global scale. It seems games like these, certain post-apocalyptic RPG games have tiny reflections of many different realities that connect it to ours. They are not predictions of what would happen under certain timescales, but rather concentrating on the decisions that ripple and collide with each other to make a different whole.
This conjunction of Kojima Productions and Decima within Horizon Zero Dawn and Death Stranding still hold strong when it comes to exploring certain issues whilst enjoying a storyline and gaming graphics with a history that begins with us, in this timeline, in our now.
We began there, and this is one of the many beautiful creations we have made with the question that burns the brightest: “what if”. The concept of life and the replication of it has machines being the faulty party…but also the survivor and then the saviour. Although within the world of Horizon Zero Dawn, we were at fault to create machines to end wars, their advancement is like blood on our hands.
And then it was beyond our control.
But it was the intention behind the creation of such intelligence that led to the downfall of man, and then the the eventual reliance on other AI to rectify what we have done wrong. With the right intention, the right intelligence to gain a perspective of some sort of coded ‘feeling’ and sympathy over our human mistakes and self-destruction, led to protective instincts and overall patience for the planet to gain some resemblance of normalcy; within a world without us, with machines as the norm, and for Aloy and the tribes to become the ones that need to adapt in a world led by machine and nature, almost in harmony. It seems, we have found a game that has gone beyond us, the humans, and just continued existing. We are just merely passing through, adapting with something that is maintaining the balance. We are not the head of the food chain anymore and it feels refreshing in a way.
Wouldn’t you agree?
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