Editing Horizon Zero Dawn (section)

==What happened to the real panthers?==
Two words: Ted Faro. Faro was <strike>the Antichrist</strike> an Old One businessman who was everything bad about humanity: a greedy, narcissistic control freak who was pathologically incapable of learning from his many mistakes. If anything good can be said about him, it is that he hired the genius scientist Elisabet Sobeck and funded her creation of pollution-scrubbing robots, which went a long way towards saving the eco-nightmare that past!Earth had become. (The game isn't very subtle about its themes.) 

But Faro got complacent, and decided making military robots would be more profitable. Because he was an idiot, he made these new robots unhackable, practically indestructible, and ''self-replicating''. Specifically, they consumed living things- '''all''' living things- to make more death robots. Anyone who has seen ''Terminator'' can imagine how this worked out.

One glitch later, the "Faro swarm" had gone rogue and started eating everything, from grass to endangered dolphins. It didn't take much time for word to spread that Faro couldn't control his robots...or that he was the reason life on Earth was hurtling towards extermination. Desperate to salvage his reputation, Faro called for Elizabet Sobeck (who had resigned in protest years ago when she saw where his company was heading) and begged her to do something.

Sobeck told him the truth. The Faro Swarm was unstoppable. None of the world's armies could defeat it, because it grew larger with every casualty. Hacking it was impossible in the short span of time before it would destroy humanity. Space travel was not advanced enough that anyone could escape Earth with it, much less carry enough supplies or people to build a functional colony. Life ''could not'' defeat the Swarm.

But, with enough preparation...it ''might'' wait it out. 

Then Sobeck outlined the "Zero Dawn" project. With Faro's wealth and the infrastructure of all Earth's governments, she would construct multiple bunkers deep beneath the Earth. These bunkers would be filled with every type of plant seed, genetic material, and cultural data that they could gather. Simultaneously, Sobeck would assemble a crack team of experts from every field of study. The best of these experts, called "the Alphas", would work with her to build GAIA, a fully-functional A.I. GAIA could live long enough to hack the Swarm, long after all humans would be dead. Then she would reseed the Earth with everything needed for a proper ecosystem- including cloned humans, who could reproduce from there. She could also create new robots of her own making, nonsentient ferrivorous machines who would purify the Earth instead of overrunning it. Zero Dawn might not succeed, and it ''certainly'' wouldn't be able to save everything...but it was the only chance that any life had.

(Faro tried to backpedal on his offer. Sobeck told him she would rat him out to the U.S military if he did. Faro caved.)

The project progressed, as did the numerous atrocities committed to enable it. Everyone not involved was used as cannon fodder to slow down the Swarm, tricked into believing that Zero Dawn could save anyone. People were kidnapped to work on the project, and imprisoned (albeit humanely) if they refused. Faro did not face any punishment for his apocalyptic negligence, and was given a luxurious custom-made bunker in which he could live out the rest of his life.

But Zero Dawn ''worked''. Right down to the wire, on the brink of annihilation, GAIA was completed. Her personality was wise and compassionate, fully committed to her purpose. Every subroutine she would need- most notably HEPHAESTUS, her capability to build machines, and APOLLO, the repository of all human knowledge- was ready. All that remained was victory.

And then Faro cracked. He couldn't bear the fact that future humans, however distant, would know of his crimes. He blamed ''knowledge itself'', not his own selfishness, for all he'd done. He couldn't accept that he had ''needed'' other, better people to save his sorry hide.

So he murdered the Alphas and destroyed APOLLO, condemning humanity to repeat his mistakes and start almost entirely from scratch.

Almost a millennium later, life has continued on. The Earth is fertile and pristine, give or take some cool-looking ruins and recordings from Old One iPhones. There are no predators or big animals- GAIA intended to use APOLLO to restore those after humans became strong enough to protect themselves from them- and humans in general are ignorant fuckers who think killing people will appease the gods. ''But'', all the extant species are flourishing. The oil, coolant, and refined metal that machines provide mean that humans are far better equipped to survive than their Stone Age ancestors. And there's always the possibility that a backup of APOLLO could be out there...somewhere.

It is a time for great heroes!

(Bonus: the game devs did not need to animate more than four animals for any given environment. What is this, ''Far Cry''?)