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It is time I paid my dues.
Zero has strongly influenced my ideas of what it is to be a human spirit worthy of existance; though he himself was a machine.

When I first met Zero, in the absence of spoken dialouge, & the presence of long blonde hair, I presumed he to be a she. This is note worthy because Zero played the roles of leader, superior, saviot, & tragic hero all in the course of a 10-15 hr 13 stage romp. Such roles are traditionally downplayed in female roles. The fact that accepted this perception without question or outrage is significant and sawys me to this day. Of course Zero turned out to be very much male. He went on to wield, instead of a suped-up arm cannon as partner X did, a Z-Saber of lightsaber like qualities. In his seemingly eternal fight for the idea that man & sentient-robot could coexist peaceably, Zero took many a life; and each time I thought about this deeply. Those he hunted were known as Maverick because they supported visons of new societies in which only sentient-robot flourished. But in time this label became more and more liberally applied.

Eventually there came a time when due to energy shortages most senient-robots were labeled "Maverick"; not because the subject was infected by a rebellion-instigating virus any longer but because of a refusal of groupthink. Even Zero, after awakening from the sleep of 100 years, was not spared. This reinforced the power that labels can have and how society is eternally searching for a new scape goat for it's own problems.

Despite remembering next to nothing, Zero chose to support a resistance movement lead by a pure hearted scientist named Ciel, who believed if she could only develope a new energy source these conflicts would stop. he risked his life to dethrone a ruthless Copy X of the Zero had fought side by side with 100+ years ago though he scarcly knew who he was. Such selflessness is the mark of a true Hero, & I sometimes wonder if I could to the same thing if called upon to do so. But as seen in post WWI Germany, one can't demolish a government & just leave, or a new madman will arrise. And arrise he did in the form of the immortal exiled dictator, Dr. Weil. Once human, he had nbeen mechanized to be undying and subsequently exiled forever.

"The humans of the time modified me...
They transferred all of my memories into program data... And switched my body
for this armor with the power to rejuvenate me... Do you have any idea
what that means? I can't age, and wounds heal more quickly than normal.
After the war, I was cursed to live an eternity in a world without light
or nature..." -Weil-

As we now see in parallel to the rise of Nazi Germany, such grievous punishments on people & countries come full circle.

Dr. Weil slaughtered many & ruled with an iron-fist, and even went so far as to extinguish all life, the very thing Zero fought for, when Weil was faced with death.
Weil fused into the control deck of a massive space station & proceded to smash it into the side of the Earth.

"Justice!? Freedom!? Worthless ideals! You Reploids are just machines, but
you started a war a long time ago in the name of freedom! And humans!
Look what they did to me! Driving me away while spouting the word
"justice!" Zero, would you insist on saving them!? Controlling the
Reploids is nothing! The destruction of all mankind is only fleeting! Not
quite alive... Not quite dead... Forever, by my side! I'll make you
suffer a fate far greater than anything ever experienced before!"
-Weil-


Only Zero stood in his way, faced with a decision: defeat Weil & destroy the space station as well as himself or be transported back to safety by Ciel and face the death of millions.

CIEL (radio): "Z-Zero! There's no time! Get back here!"

ZERO: "No, there is no way. If I destroy Weil's core, the explosion will take
Ragnarok out with it... If Ragnarok is blown apart, it no longer poses a
threat!"

CIEL (radio): "But what about you?"

WEIL: "... Are you even capable of it!? The Reploid hero... Protecting
justice and humnanity! I am one of those humans you were sworn to
protect! Do you have it in you to defeat me!?"

* - Several mechanical tentacles plunge into Weil's back. The screen whites
out, and when it returns, Weil has become much larger.

ZERO: "I never cared about justice, and I don't recall ever calling myself a
hero... I have always only fought for the people I believe in. ..."

CIEL (radio): "Zero! Zero!"

ZERO: Ciel... Believe in me!

CIEL (radio): "Zerooo!!!"

Zero died that day but his ideals & actions and perhaps his very cybernetic, albeit fictional, soul lives on in me.
Truly I would build a Zero memorial bridge in I could.